


all you have is your fire

by yogurtgun



Series: The Vranjska Series [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: BAMF Daenerys Targaryen, Canonical Character Death, Dragonstone, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Husbands, Jon's no good very bad month on dragonstone, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Incest, Politics, Secret Relationship, The Brotherhood Without Banners (ASoIaF), White Walkers, because she actually uses the poltics she learned the past 10 years, everyone pretends not to sense those sweet sweet homoerotic vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-08 03:54:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21469651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yogurtgun/pseuds/yogurtgun
Summary: Jon's hardship in navigating political waters on Dragonstone is contrasted only by Tormund's hardship governing Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The reunion, however, is only that much sweeter for it._Only a moment passes before Tormund barrels into him. He would have been knocked off his feet had Jon not opened his arms in anticipation of this, and gripped him tightly. Jon laughs, letting himself bury his face in Tormund’s furs. It’s been too long.Tormund’s hand is on the back of his neck, in his hair, and for a space between breaths, Jon imagines they’re alone. He wishes to do nothing than cup his face and kiss him.
Relationships: Jon Snow & Daenerys Targaryen, Tormund Giantsbane/Jon Snow
Series: The Vranjska Series [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1358740
Comments: 44
Kudos: 298





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Yes I'm back! With three chapters no less! I'm really sorry about not doing this sooner, but from this point it should be some smooth sailing. I plan to finish this series, the latest by 1st of January :D Thank you all for sticking with me <3

Dragonstone is a bare, inhospitable place, sharp and harsh like the man who had once called it home. Unable to bear crops and unfit for cattle, it is little else than a jagged rock sticking out of the sea like the tip of the knife through a wound, bearing the blood-colors of the Targaryen family crest and flying them high from the same-named castle. The dragon has come home.

Daenerys Stormborn is beautiful, as Sansa had told him she would be, but her beauty dissipates when surrounded by serrated edges of her throne, and the tall sharp ceilings that make Jon feel as if he’s stepped into the maw of one of her beasts.

Daenerys is a piece of winter snow come to life, a drop of milk in an empty cup, displaced in the darkness of the Dragonstone keep. She is an icicle frozen right above the doors, on the precipice of falling; dangerous and incalculable. For a moment, John even thinks she glows, blinding him to her words. But he needn't eyes to listen.

After a thorough introduction by her translator, Daenerys says, “Thank you for traveling so far, my lord. I hope the seas weren’t too rough.” 

She appears contained, a sheet of porcelain laid over her face, so Jon can neither surmise her motives nor her emotions except those she wants him to see. 

Ignoring the insult, John replies, “The winds were kind, your grace.”

Though Jon is happy to let it slide, perhaps establish the point later on in the conversation, Davos has no such patience. Jon remembers all too late he served Stannis Baratheon. 

“Apologies, I have a Flea Bottom accent, I know, but Jon Snow is King in the North, your grace. He's not a lord.”

Daenerys’ sharp, cold eyes turn from Jon to Davos. “I never did receive a formal education either, but I could have sworn I read the last King in the North was Torrhen Stark, who bent the knee to my ancestor, Aegon Targaryen. In exchange for his life and the lives of the Northmen, Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity.”

Her gaze, like moonlight concentrated on one spot, turns to Jon. “So I assume, my lord, you're here to bend the knee.”

There’s an intensity to her stare, such that he could not lie even if he wanted to in the first. The room vibrates with the echo of her soft words, charged with nothing but violence. 

Jon has prepared for this. If nobody else, Sansa has always taken to knowing the history of her family. Jon is not unprepared.

“Did Aegon Targaryen burn alive Torrhen’s grandfather and his uncle, like your father did mine?” Jon asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “The oath was broken long before I sat on the throne. The day I bend my knee and ask my people to fight for the crown that betrayed them is the day my people cut my guts from my belly and make me eat them.”

At least he knows the Free Folk would, if not the Northmen.

He watches, inexplicably, as Daenerys’ mouth curls in amusement. Her eyes crinkle and she stands. Walking towards him, she becomes smaller and smaller until she is just beneath his chin when they’re finally face to face. 

“Welcome, Jon Snow, King in the North,” she says, offering her hand. Realizing it’s all been a test, Jon releases a soft breath and shakes her hand. 

The room as a whole seems to release a breath it’s been holding the whole time. Sound filters in, as if it had been held back by Daenerys’ will. Jon can now hear the sound of waves breaking outside, soft leather on stone, and the occasional draconic growl.

Daenerys extends a hand and Jon falls in step with her as they walk beyond the throne, through hidden doors, into a chamber dominated by a large painted table, carved in the shape of Westeros. However, Daenerys doesn’t even glance at it, empty as it is, and pushes on ahead to a smaller table positioned just next to the three large openings one would have called windows if they weren’t as tall as a man. 

Outside, Jon can see nothing but rocks and the sea, and the air’s warm enough that, he supposes, the builders didn’t see the necessity of closing up the gaps. Such architecture could not exist anywhere north.

Tyrion follows after Daenerys, and sits facing Davos while John sits opposite Daenerys. Two wines, ale and water poured, they finally settle. 

“I know the politics of the south wish for long courting and gestures of trust, but Lord Tyrion informs me northmen are practical people. So I must ask, your grace, what brings you to Dragonstone if it’s not to bend the knee?”

“White Walkers,” Jon says simply. He sees Tyrion blinking as if somehow shocked by the turn of events.

“White Walkers?” she asks. 

Jon nods and watches as Tyrion looks at Davos as if to confirm that he’s heard this well and he isn’t imagining things. Then he says, “Weren’t they children’s stories?”

“Grumkins and snarks, you called them once,” Jon tells Tyrion, wishing it was only that. He look at Daenerys. “Are you aware of the Free Folk, people who live beyond the Wall?”

She looks to Tyrion. “They’re not of the seven realms,” she says, as if meaning ‘ _ they weren’t a concern until now’ _ .

“Wildlings rarely are,” Tyrion tells his queen, justification prepared.

Jon had assumed that Free Folk would be overlooked. When the north itself overlooks them, it’s rare they’re in thoughts of bigger forces. 

“They live beyond the reach of the Crown in the northern tundras. Only, what remains of them I helped cross the Wall.”

Then, Jon tells them of Hardhome.

How long they sit there he doesn’t know, only the disbelieving way Daenerys says, “You understand how unlikely this sounds.”

“Not more unlikely than three grown dragons,” Jon replies. 

“Regardless of being real or not, we cannot send our army north, into foreign territory, on word alone when we have an immediate threat just across the channel,” Tyrion tells Jon. 

“How can squabbling over a metal chair be more important than lives of  _ everyone _ in Westeros?” Jon demands. 

“I take it that we’ve come to a reason behind you demanding our presence here,” Davos says, always keeping an eye on the target.

“We cannot protect foreign territory, but I do protect my friends,” Daenerys explains, eyebrows quirking. “Cersei’s claim on the throne is only as strong as the houses supporting her. And currently Dorne, the Reach, and the Iron Islands are in open rebellion.”

Tyrion almost looks pleading when he says, “Bend the knee and let us help you.”

As the Lord Commander, he had promised to fight with the Free Folk. As the King in the North, he’d promised to fight for his people. Daenerys knows nothing and wants nothing but subjugation. She cares not for his plight, only for that which ails her: somebody other than her sitting on the Iron Throne.

Jon shouldn’t have trusted Tyrion. Despite Sansa’s efforts, Jon is wholly unprepared. 

“The last northman who kneeled in the south was my father at the day of his execution,” Jon says, and pushes away from the table. 

####  -

All matters being fair, and hospitality rules obeyed, Jon and Davos are provided each a room in the eastern part of the keep. Warped in the same strange architectural style that has never really caught on in the South, a wall missing and opened to the raging sea, Jon’s room reminds him of a cave. For one, the air is somewhat crisper and if he could feel it, he’d wager it’s colder than in other parts of the keep. It’s wide, with a low ceiling, allowing for a large bed, armoire, tables, chairs, washbasins, and other kicknacks that usually go inside a room. 

Jon finds it stifling.

“You’re brooding,” Tyrion tells him on the third day of Jon’s stay on Dragonstone as he, no doubt, has come to convince Jon to bend the knee to his Queen. On the top of the cliffs looking out into the blue ocean, Jon thinks,  _ Well, I did want to go south _ . Tormund would have found something funny in that at least and the thought calms him. 

The main difference from the North, Jon has noticed, is the sun. He feels it in that sort of way he would have felt warm skin pressing over his own. It’s as surprising and impossible as the three dragons he’s seen flying above the castle on the day he’d come.

“There’s a strategy,” he remembers Sansa telling him as Tyrion continues to speak. “Tyrion likes to talk. Let him. If he is as he was before, he will try to help himself by helping you.” 

Another thing she’d insisted on is for Jon not to forget why he was going to Dragonstone. First and foremost, he’s there for dragonglass. If he can convince Daenerys to march her army up North, then so be it, but that isn’t a primary concern. The Northmen have handled their problems by themselves for centuries, and this might prove to be another such instance. Sansa knew, as Jon does, that asking for the impossible is the first step to getting what _ is  _ possible.

“She protects people from monsters, just as you do. It's why she came here,” Tyrion insists, looking across the beach below them. Belief powers his words, metamorphosing his voice. He is not the same man Jon had met so long ago. “And she's not about to head north to fight an enemy she's never seen on the word of a man she doesn't know. After a single meeting, it's not a reasonable thing to ask.”

If she were from the North, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. However, ever since the Light of the Seven blessed them, and the weirwoods were cut, southerners have forgotten the horrors that lay dormant in the North. Daenerys isn’t even southern. Not truly. She may have been born to Dragonstone but she lived, learned, and grown far from Westeros’ shores. The only claim she has is that of her name.

Names, Jon’s learned, cannot make people love you and protect you no matter the house. The Stark name didn’t protect Sansa or Robb, it has always just made their suffering different. Her name, though Daenerys might bet on it, won’t give her the throne. 

Tyrion looks up at Jon. “So, do you have anything reasonable to ask?”

It’s the chance Jon has been waiting for but didn’t think would come so soon. “Dragonglass,” Jon says. “It can kill the walkers. There’s plenty in the caves under the island.”

He sees Tyrion’s eyes catch light just like Edd’s during training when he thinks he’s spotted an opening in Jon’s moves. In that moment Jon knows that Sansa’s advice was true. Just as she’d promised, the next day Daenerys permits him to excavate dragonglass and use her ships to sail it north to White Harbor.

####  -

_ “Convince her to help us _ ,” Sansa had told him. She’d also said that Jon would know what to say when he met her, but as he stands in the cave, looking at drawings of the children and the first men, knowing they’d fought to defeat the Night King together, and Daenerys still demanding Jon kneel, he knows there will be no changing her mind. She’s unmoved by the evidence, opportunistic in face of danger. There is no respect, not for Jon and his people, not for the threat that looms above their heads. None will be coming any time soon. If Jon wishes to leave the island he will need to bend the knee and both of them know it.

Daenerys doesn’t want friends, doesn’t want equals. She wants subjects to rule. Unfortunately, there are no chains to break around Jon’s wrists so she might earn his fealty. Sansa and Jon have already freed themselves. 

As if reading his thoughts, Daenerys’ lips quirk and she says, “It’s not really as bad as it seems. This is purely politics. It will allow me to make a legitimized counterattack. I have no true wish to rule the North, a land I’ve never even seen and whose customs I do not know.”

It’s a bold, honest, proclamation hidden from the ears of the world. Jon doesn’t know if he’s being deceived. Shocked, he has no reply for Daenerys at all as they head out of the cave.

“Your majesty,” Varys says, bowing his head. Next to him Tyrion looks serious. They’d been waiting in front of the cave. Jon isn’t sure if it’s telling of the gravity of the news or of their fear to deliver it.

Whatever Varys whispers in her ear has Daenerys’ shoulders pulling back and her demeanor cooling and growing serious. 

He catches a brief whisper of the Reach, someone called Grey Worm, and prisoners. Whatever it is, it’s more important than keeping Jon’s company because Daenerys turns to him briefly and says, “Excuse me, your grace. I must attend to my advisors at once.”

Daenerys climb her dragon and takes off with her fleet not two days later. Presumably to do what, Jon thinks, is in her blood. All Targaryans are conquerors. 

It buys Jon time to write to Sansa and get her responses along with updates from the Wall. Jon is certain that their correspondences are being read, Sansa had warned him about that as well, but he’s got nothing to hide. 

He’s also got nothing to do but think on the island. Ser Davos, however, proves to be good company. The man seems to take their captivity in a stride, enjoying the sunny days and the beaches, no matter how much time they waste by not being in the North, and is forgiving when Jon’s mind strays to different matters.

“What do you think of her?” Davos asks, now that there aren’t any prying ears around. Jon is reminded that Davos has been on Dragonstone longer than him and Daenerys combined. It had been his home when Stannis was his lord. 

“She’s helped destitute people before,” Jon says slowly, watching his step on the way down. “She wants to continue doing that. But to help us we have to be destitute first.”

“And in exchange,” Davos continues on his thought, “she will get unquestionable loyalty.”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Does she do it because it’s right or because of that loyalty.”

Ser Davos inclines his head then says, “Speaking of loyalty, Missandei of Naath.”

The woman turns when addressed, but the whole time Jon and Davos talk with her Jon has a strange sensation, the same one one he’d felt just before the battle with the Boltons when Ramsey had kept insisting on calling him a bastard, that he’s being mocked. Missandei is not so obvious, but Jon finds it highly unlikely that a translator such as her would not know the meaning of a word she uses.

He wonders if it’s some kind of game, but the thought is stollen from his mind by the warning bells echoing from the bay. He looks down to the beach only to spot a ship with far to familiar sales. “Is that a Greyjoy ship?”

“It appears to be,” Missandei replies. 

Jon’s blood roars in his ears as he descends the stairs until he’s walking in wet sand. Guards join behind him, thick-haired Dothraki who watch him as much as they watch the approaching boat, ferrying no other than Theon Greyjoy.

At the sight of him, Jon feels such anger he’s paralyzed with it. Theon, who was his brother, Theon, who had betrayed Robb, who took Winterfell, who, Jon had thought, killed Rickon and Bran until Sansa told him otherwise. The anger seeps into his lungs, and when he grabs Theon by the lapels of his grimy shirt, he speaks with it. 

“What you did for her is the only reason why I’m not killing you.”

Theon doesn’t meet his gaze and it angers Jon more than anything he could have said. He releases him, and looks at Davos before stepping away and through the dothraki to get to the steps. 

Jon dislikes getting angry. He’d been a petulant child, easily offended, and anger makes people do stupid things. Though the man will never know, Tyrion did teach him a lesson that night they met, and Jon had been trying to listen to it all his life. It’s why Ramsey couldn’t inspire anger with his taunts. 

But Theon, Jon thinks as he races up the stairs back to the castle, Theon was family and he betrayed all of them.

Davos comes to his room later to inform him that the Queen has another guest now. “Should you think of doing anything rash.”

Jon scoffs but waves Davos in all the same. He likes Davos. He’s more straightforward than any other southerner he’s met. Should he decide to stay in the North, he can do well for himself. 

“I didn’t think you’d leave,” Davos says, slowly walking around the room as if there’s something not quite right with it. 

“Men generally make stupid decisions when they’re angry or in love,” Jon says. He looks away from Davos back to the window. “My sister told me that.”

“And you listened to her,” Davos replies, sounding pleased. “Wise choice. Of course, I take it she would have handled this whole situation differently.”

“We would have had an ally by now, I suspect,” Jon admits. “But Sansa is a Stark. The last one in the North. She should stay where the eyes of the Old Gods can see her.”

He smiles at Davos’ unimpressed expression. Neither of them are much men of faith and yet, being with Tormund, some things have stuck. “And where our men can protect her.”

“Ah,” Davos inclines his head. He waits a couple of moments then says, “You are a young man, and a king. Daenerys is a young woman, and a queen.”

He steps closer, though Jon already knows what he is going to propose. “Historically, marriage has always been a contract to unite forces.”

Jon gives Davos a searching look. Though they tried being quiet, nothing about Tormund and Jon has ever been as subtle as it needed to be, and especially not in front of people they trust. He wishes now he can convey these thoughts to Davos without speaking them out loud and letting the wrong ears hear them. He doesn’t know Daenerys. Not truly. He doesn’t know how she would react. 

A moment passes where Davos doesn’t do much more than look back at Jon with raised eyebrows, expecting him to speak.

“I can’t do that,” Jon says, in the end. 

“You should consider it. We don’t have much time left.”

####  \- 

The hallways of the keep are tall and wide, cool under the touch, and still unfamiliar. They constrict around Jon, just like his room, and it’s with haste that he finds his way outside and climbs the steps in a hurry, until he’s standing above the cliffs. The keep had been built into the stone, and it’s highest levels reach the natural peak of the island, that spills into a large plato. 

The winds are merciless, bending the feeble grass that grows atop the cliffs, feeding Jon nothing but salty air. Even here, Jon cannot breathe. 

His hands shake with the numbness of his whole body. He can’t get warm. He hasn’t been warm ever since he left Winterfell and his bed. Some days are better than others, Jon tells himself, but the aches from his wounds are even worse here than they were north. Yet, the worst thing of all, is that he knows he cannot even cry from the pain. It’s not real; just in his head. 

Dawn breaks and Jon finally sees the ghosts that have followed him out of the keep standing near the foot of the stairs, observing. The dothraki are silent guards when they wish to be. 

Jon turns away from them and starts walking. It’s a good thing he remembered to take his cloak and gloves though a macabre thought has always plagued him: what would happen were he to walk into a snowstorm? He isn’t sure of the limitations of his body, such as it is now. If there is a line he has to jump across to feel something, anything at all, would it be found over the Wall, buried under ancient snows, or in the cold ocean shimmering underneath the neck-breaking cliffs he now stands on? 

There’s something intrinsically human in looking over the ledge and wanting to jump just to see what would happen.

The cold takes fingers and toes in the frostbite. They go blue, gangrenous, fall off. He’s seen it too many times. Jon knows cold, but Winterfell and the Wall are not the same. Castle Black is harsh even to his thick hide. Would it happen to him as well, were he to expose his fingers to the cold even though he doesn’t feel it? 

A worse thought occurs to Jon then, that frightens him. What if nothing happens? 

The sun rises high and the horizon darkens with sails painted black and red. Jon watches as the fleet approaches, Daenerys riding above them on her dragon, flanked by the other two. The smallest of them spins and does circles in the air, as if dancing to some music Jon can’t hear, while the largest flies up and down, changing altitudes, to fit the tempo. 

It will take another hour for the fleet to reach Dragonstone, but the dragons approaches rapidly until they’re circling above Jon. They land one after the other: the red beast Daenerys rides taking up the most space, the smallest dragon, though up close he isn’t small at all, lands a bit away, while the green and bronze one somehow manages to nestle himself between the two, right in front of John.

Large yellow-orange wings fold to contain space while claws dig deep into the earth. The dragon shifts his head, cocking it left and right, intelligent eyes peering down at Jon. It’s mouth opens, showing large incisors that could snap tree-trunk and probably did, while air blows from large slits that are the dragon’s nostrils, hot and phosphorous. 

It’s only an arm’s reach away. Jon, overcome by madness, stretches his hand and touches it. What’s even more insane is that the dragon lets him. 

The texture of the dragon’s skin is surprisingly smooth, scales as small as fingertips covering even his mouth. He can feel the heat of it even through his gloves. After so long, it’s an overwhelming sensation. It almost burns, but John cannot make himself pull away. The dragon’s eyes look at him, and Jon feels not only seen, but known. 

A frightening fact occurs to Jon then: nothing burns hotter than dragonfire. 

The thought distracts him until he sees Daenerys’ perpetually firm face soften into a smile as it peeks at him from under one large dragon-wing. She comes closer and says, “This is Rhaegal. He usually doesn’t like people.”

If Ghost were with him, Jon would have said, “This is Ghost. He’s actually fond of a lot of my friends.” But Ghost isn’t there and the words get stuck in his throat. 

“Rhaegal,” John mutters. For a maddening moment, John thinks the dragon actually hears him. Then he pulls away, re-joining his brothers.

Jon is not often in awe, but the dragons are an impossibility brought into life, unto  _ his _ life, as beautiful and magnificent as the Walkers are harrowing.

“I named him after my brother, Rhaegar,” Danerys says conversationally, standing next to Jon. They observe the dragons together now. “Viserion is the one with golden and cream scales, Drogon with the red-black.”

“And you...gave  _ birth _ to them?” Jon asks, in an awkward and clumsy way only those truly shocked or otherwise thrown manage.

Daenerys chuckles softly, lips ticking up in corners. “In a sense of the word. It’s a long story.”

He’s no foreigner to long stories, but he doesn’t press the issue. The dragons take flight then, and he turns his attention back to the woman standing next to him.

“Tyrion said you had issues in the Reach.” 

“I did. And now I have a few less problems,” Daenerys affirms. She doesn’t look particularly self-satisfied, nor does she look defeated. A measured middle ground. “Lady Olenna is safe in Highgarden for the foreseeable future.”

Daenerys cocks her head towards the stairs, and Jon ends up following her into the cool shade of the jagged cliff edges that transition into the battlements. 

“Tyrion foresaw that the first thing his sister would do is try to get the Reach’s grain into King’s Landing. There’s nothing worse, after all, than a million starving people separated from you only by a gate.” 

“You could go, right now, fly to the Red Keep, and take the city within minutes.”

“I could,” Daenerys agrees. “But that’s not really the point.”

“What  _ is _ the point?” Jon asks, peeved. 

“In the long run?” Daenerys asks, eyes challenging him, though for what he isn’t sure. “People ruled by those they want to rule them. People ruling  _ themselves _ .”

A thought strikes Jon in that moment that Daenerys truly believes in what she’s saying. Her old eyes leave Jon’s for a moment, looking over his shoulder. Her amusement morphs into true happiness, her expression suddenly so open Jon has to look away from her towards whatever has caused such a shift. 

A man stands with the guards, alone but for a moment. Daenerys is quick to wrap her arms around him, and he is all too happy to bend down to let her. It’s the most honest thing Jon’s seen since he’s come to Dragonstone. She loves this man, and Jon sees, in the way his weathered aged forehead uncoils, he loves her as well. 

In short order Jon learns his name is Jorah Mormont of the Bear Island, as Daenerys invites Jon to join them as they walk back to the keep. However, they cannot go more than a few paces before Missandei appears and Theon with her. 

Daenerys’ smile falls, and once again she turns into a ruler. A Queen. She leads a burning path back to her council room. Varys is there, and stands when they enter. 

“Speak,” Danerys commands once she’s taken her seat, her back as straight as the edge of a longsword, hands placed evenly on the armrests.

“Your grace,” Theon starts, a little unevenly, “my sister and Ellaria Sand were captured by my uncle at Sea. I’ve come to ask for your aid.”

Her tumultuous eyes hold onto Theon. “With what fleet?”

“He seems to have held a coup. On Pyke.” 

He adds nothing more. His voice doesn’t sound like his own. Not like the one Jon knew.

Sansa had told him some of what happened to Theon, but witnessing the change and knowing are two entirely different things. There’s something nervous in Theon now. He can see it, though he wishes not to, but he also sees the man combating it with will alone. 

“Is your uncle keen on talking?” she asks, gaze still steady, sharp, and pointed at Theon. A spear sharpened just for him. 

“As much as you, your grace,” Theon replies. Once, it could have sounded smug. “The Ironborns only respect strength.”

“Why would he take Ellaria Sand as well?” Jorah asks. 

“She’s been an acting emissary from Dorne, since the crown prince isn’t comfortable with long travels. Or leaving Dorne, for that matter,” Daenerys explains, turning to Jorah. 

“It seems, your grace,” Varys intervenes, “that the man known as Euron Greyjoy made a few appearances in court in the Red Keep. Could it be that Ellaria’s situation is due to her affiliation with Marcella rather then yourself?”

Something seems to fit inside Daenerys’ head. “Marcella refused to leave Dorne and go back home for one. Of course Cersei would take it as Ellaria meddling. They’ve been living in the palace together and Cersei is no stranger to courtly intrigue.”

Jon’s, at this point, barely keeping up with the conversation but the name sounds familiar. 

“Marcella Baratheon?” he asks, incredulous. 

Daenerys nods, looks at him for a moment, and her frown is lessened by a quirk of her mouth. “Are you wondering why I’m tolerating competition?”

Jon licks his lips. “If I may be so bold.”

“Did you know Robert Baratheon sent assassins to kill me while I was in Essos?” Daenerys shakes her head. “I have no interest in killing the girl. She has accepted her unfortunate familial circumstances, and she’s quite comfortable living in Dorne. Should things go well, she will marry there.”

She seems to dismiss Jon in that moment because she turns to Theon. “We’ll find her, Theon. I swear it.”

That seems to be all Theon wants to hear.

“I need whispers. If Ellaria or Yara are kept in the Red Keep I want to know,” she tells Varys. Then she dismisses the whole room and Jon remains the only one standing in front of her.

Daenerys’ eyes fall down to the table, skid over it then land on him. She looks at him for a moment, as if trying to tell him something, but whatever it is Jon doesn’t know her well enough to understand. 

The silence lingers as he’s observed but Jon’s never really minded quietude. Finally, she breaks it asking, “Is it true that you asked Ramsey Bolton to combat before the battle?”

“I did.”

“A pragmatic view. Instead of thousand dying, it was either you or him.” She mulles it over. “He refused.”

“He would have always refused. He wasn’t the man to risked his life for his people,” Jon replies, knowing that disloyalty was what brought around his ruin in the end. If he fought for his people, they wouldn’t have lowered the castle doors for Jon. He is glad Ramsey is now but a handful of scattered ash.

Daenerys nods and presses her curled fingers to her lips in thought. 

When she looks at Jon again she’s distant as if the fire present within her is occupied with something else. 

He’s dismissed, as much as another king can be dismissed by a queen, but he doesn’t get far until he hears footsteps behind him. For a moment he thinks it’s Daenerys herself, then guards, but he hears Theon’s broken voice calling out for him, stopping him in his tracks. 

Jon takes a fortifying breath and turns. He’s been good at staying away from Theon. Each time he sees him all he sees is broken trust in a broken man. His anger rushes him, just like it does now, and it’s as exhausting as it’s invigorating. He doesn’t know whether to retreat or to push a sword through him.

Distantly, Jon is aware Theon is speaking. He knows what he wants. He knows that, having saved Sansa, absolution isn’t so distant. 

Absently, Jon wonders why is it that everyone always asks judgement of him, but are never satisfied when he chooses forgiveness. It had been so in Castle Black, then a lifetime later in Winterfell, Sansa’s quick words urging him to oust children from their homes. 

His temper eases, a quick mountain river smoothing into the wetlands, sluggish where it meets the lake. After all, Jon sees his suffering and Theon admits to his crimes. He can’t punish him more than Ramsey did and more then he’s punishing himself now.

“It’s not my place to forgive you for all of it, but what I can forgive, I do.” 

The words surprise Theon who, for the first time in his life, doesn’t hide just how close to crying he really is. He wants to urge him to let it out, but kindness and forgiveness are two different things.

“You don’t have to choose,” Jon tells him, because he is tired, and in a sense he understands. Who Jon wishes to be and who he must be are two different people. Besides, all he ever really wanted was forgiveness; one Catelyn was never keen on giving. “You’re a Greyjoy  _ and _ you’re a Stark.”

Theon’s face crumbles. He looks away, for the first time as well, since he’s approached Jon to talk with him. Jon looks at him, holding his twisted, aged, visage within his mind’s eye, forcing himself to see him as he has always wished to be seen. Theon isn’t weak and he has a purpose he’s found all on his own. That’s more than a man could wish for in a lifetime.

####  -

The weather inexplicably gets warmer, the summer’s last hurrah before the temperatures drop for good. Jon sees the way Tyrion changes his leather for cotton, Varys loses a layer of silk, and Missandei goes shoulderless. The Unsullied which guard the inside of the keep don’t move. The Dothraki, however, take the chance to meet the sun with bared bronze skin stretches over strong shoulders. 

Despite the fact he notices these changes, they don’t register as the shift in the weather as much as personal preferences Jon doesn’t feel like questioning. Thankfully, Daenerys is glad to point it out to him. 

For a moment the sound of crashing waves dominates his hearing, so loud even his thoughts seen to go quiet. He feel unbalanced walking in such fine wet sand. He’s too used to walking on firm ground.

The beaches, however small, are a novelty. The salt blooms in the air, the winds stir the stifling air, and sun stares down at the sea revealing shallow patches where the water is near translucent. It’s nothing like the Shivering Sea. 

Jon shakes his hand free of the water and stands from a crouch. He can’t feel whether the water is warm or cold, but he’d wanted to touch it anyway. 

“I didn’t get that,” Jon says, turning to the woman behind him. 

Daenerys, wrapped in a blue dress with embroidery reminiscent of her dragons’ scales, quirks a lip and repeats, “Why do you dress so heavily? Surely it can’t be as cold as in Winterfell.”

Jon notes that he’s wearing gloves, fur cloak and his usual leathers, and suddenly feels all too conscious of his appearance. This time around, there’s no Tormund to dictate how heavy he should go.

  
“I can’t really feel it,” Jon replies, yet ends up taking off his other glove and stuffing both into a pocket. 

“The cold?” Danerys asks, lifting an eyebrow. 

“Or the warmth,” Jon adds. 

She gives him a quizzical look, but if nothing else, Jon has always disliked talking about his situation. Seeing how he won’t explain, Daenerys takes a few steps away from him and says, “That sounds like a long story too. Join me?”

Dragonstone is a big island. Though there’s not one big beach wrapping around it completely, the main one is still lengthy. They walk in a sluggish pace, the guards behind them keeping their distance until one could almost ignore them.

“Is this your first time so far down South?” she asks conversationally.

She must know the answer. Still, Jon replies, “Yes. As you know, your grace, men in my family generally don’t fare well away from the North.”

She hums, folding her hands behind her back. “Your brother, if I recall, was going to march south.”

“He was,” Jon admits. 

“You share the sentiment,” Daenerys states. 

“My sister was a prisoner in the Red Keep. She was supposed to marry Joffrey, then was married to Tyrion,” Jon explains. “He wanted to save her. She doesn’t need saving anymore.”

“The war of the five kings, they called it,” Daenerys adds, as if for her it’s simply an annotation in a book. Jon realizes it is. She wasn’t here, in Westeros, to feel the full brunt of the wars. Neither was Jon.

“It was just slaughter,” Jon says ruefully. “I’m tired of people dying.”

Daenerys inclines her head, agreeing with him. “I imagine Westeros herself is tired of shedding blood. All for the wrong reasons, for the wrong people, and for nothing to come out of it.”

“And you have the  _ right _ reason?” 

Daenerys doesn’t take offence. They stop under an overpass. “I don’t intend to do anything more than burn the leeches.”

“War has always been the way to settle disputes. Robert Baratheon rose against your father, led a war against the throne. If you want it, you  _ will _ have to do the same.”

“The Lannister army cannot fight on all fronts and Cersei won’t be able to hold onto King’s Landing once the people have no food. They’ll rise against her themselves.”

Jon feels sick. “And you will inspire loyalty in them when you feed them.”

Both of Daenerys’ eyebrows are ticked up. She almost laughs when she says, “This is a  _ game _ . For a little while longer at least.” 

They begin walking once again, Jon feeling somehow worse for the wear. 

The beach narrows, the cliff growing from a slope into a vertical wall against which Jon brushes his shoulder. 

“My Hand tells me you fought Ramsay Bolton with a wildling army. He didn’t seem to understand how you did it. You inspired them as well.”

“I told them Ramsay was going to march up north and slaughter them if we didn’t fight him. With the White Walkers to the North, their choices were limited, and they are not people to wait for death.”

Daenerys’ eyes spark, grow ever colder and crisper.

“Was it true?” she asks, sounding amused though her expression is anything but.

“He sent a letter. It would have been slaughter.”

Daenerys acknowledges this for what it is: the truth. “You’ve had the fortune of living here since you were born. People that follow you know you. I, on the other hand, need to play politics to gain that trust.”

“You misunderstand, your grace,” Jon says. “I was a stranger to the Free Folk as much as you are a stranger to Westeros. They chose me on merit alone, and because I sacrificed much without being asked to do so. In the end--”

_ I ended up dying for it _ , he wants to say but the words won’t come out. 

“In the end,” he marches on, “the northern lords chose me only because my sister has the name Stark. I am, and will always be, a bastard.”

Daenerys’ eyes soften, and for a moment she looks confused. Perhaps Jon has been too honest. 

“I can legitimize you,” she offers, quieter than before. 

Jon laughs softly, and shakes his head. “That would not change anything even if northmen accepted a southern queen as a ruler. They already know me as Jon Snow. Sansa is the rightful heir. A Stark must remain in Winterfell.”

They stop at a place where the cliff dips into a half circle, creating a little cave under which they can hide from the occasional spray of saltwater. The air is humid and heavy, difficult to breathe in and soaking not only into his clothes but into his skin. 

“Your sister sounds like quite the character.”

“Sansa?” Jon falls quiet in thought. She would know how to use this situation, for one. “She’s the smartest person I know. But she is a Stark and a wolf.”

“Olenna said a similar thing. She told me to be a dragon.”

“You already are,” Jon replies. He contemplates it for a moment, then asks, “May I be frank, your grace?”

“Please,” Daenerys replies. 

“People fear you because of your name Targaryen. It will take more than starving them to prove you are not your father. And still, when you do, the North remembers. Even if I bend the knee, the people won’t. They’ll just find another king to represent their interest better.”

_ Or Queen _ , he doesn’t say.

Daenerys, to his utmost surprise, smiles. 

“That’s just it,” she crows, as if he’s finally said something she’s wanted to hear since he got to the island. “Why must people follow those they did not choose? Why must the Seven Kingdoms suffer at Cersei’s hand, a woman they hate? That’s too much power for one person to hold.”

“But--” Jon stutters, unsure what Daenerys is telling him. “It’s always been done that way.”

“Your grace,” Daenerys says without a hint of irony in it. She’s addressing him as her equal. “I’m not planning to unite the Seven Kingdoms. There won’t  _ be _ a King or a Queen living leagues away from them, dictating how they should behave. The people will choose who they wish to lead them, guide them, and represent them.”

Jon feels as if the proverbial rug has been pulled under him. “And you?” he asks, voice hoarse. 

“And I’ll be there, for a bit, to check that power until you can all regulate yourselves. To see the transition be just and fair.”

Jon thinks that he’s misunderstood Daenerys by quite a large margin.

She looks toward the calm sea, then looks back at him. “Yara is the Queen of the Iron Islands, and Doran Martell is King of Dorne. Olenna, now that we’ve fought the Lannisters away from the borders of the Reach, will have her own Kingdom to rule.”

“Then why do you wish me to bend the knee?” 

“I don’t wish to take away your Kingship, Jon Snow. I want you to allow my eyes in your court so that, when you are no longer king, men worse than you cannot pressure the lesser to choose them.”

Jon is lost for words. No matter how much Sansa prepared him, he never expected this.  _ They  _ never expected this. 

Daenerys seems to find his silence amusing because she simply says, “Think on it. Now, shall we go back?”

####  -

The only Greyjoy ship in the Targaryen fleet sails out at dawn. Jon watches it’s sails rising and ballooning with air that propels it forward. It’s different than the one he’d sailed the Shivering Sea with; it’s smaller, faster, and more compact.

The distance becomes too great. Jon loses it in the horizon and feels very, very alone. 

Jon sighs and sits down on the damp grass above a cliff overlooking the bay and rubs his tired face with a gloveless hand. Sleep has been evading him as of late. The bed, though large, neither has Tormund nor Ghost in it, and the crashing of the sea becomes a disconcerting murmur in the small hours of midnight, whispers he cannot comprehends far too reminiscent of nightmares and crypts. 

He wishes he brought someone more familiar with him, even though at the time he didn’t want to put anyone in danger. At least one of the Free Folk would have sufficed for conversation. Anyone, really, he’d be able to break his tongue with using the old tongue. 

He misses the Free Folk camp, the constant sound of life around him be it skirting knives or thumps of boots. He desperately misses the yelling, and especially the laughter. Around fires, the tribes would collect to tell stories or sing them if they’re feeling particularly festive. 

He misses Tormund. It’s an old ache. 

The air crackles, disturbed by large dragon wings. Watching them, Jon has noticed that wherever they go from the island, it’s never together except when they’re travelling with Daenerys. 

Above him, Rhaegal is a but a shape that dives, and grows larger until he’s right there in front of him, his wings rising the dirt and dust as he lands. 

Jon, uncomfortable with having his back facing the dragon, gets up. Rhaegal has landed close again, only this time the dragon stretches and folds himself, as might a cat, lying on his front claws, face pressed into them. Jon, very carefully, walks over and touches his would-be cheek. 

Rhaegal’s large red eyes blink at him but this time there’s no showing of teeth, no growl. Jon, who’s had Ghost for a while, wonders exactly how he’d managed to win a right for a dragon to be comfortable around him. 

Perhaps it has something to do with Daenerys. He knows it’s said dragons are intelligent creatures. They must think he’s Daenerys’ friend due to the display from last time. 

Certainly, when Robert Baratheon visited Winterfell for the first time, him being friendly with Eddard had everyone grow much more comfortable with his presence then it would have been otherwise. 

Rhaegal stretches out one of his wings, bracketing Jon between it and his face. For a while, Jon can do nothing but pet the creature, as absurd as it may seem. Tormund won’t believe him when he tells him. 

Low in his throat, Rhaegal makes sounds that, perhaps to someone his size would be quiet, but are incredibly loud to Jon who is so close to him. With his view limited, he doesn’t notice Daenerys approaching until Rhaegal starts shifting around, growing restless until he’s lifting his wing to reveal the woman. 

Instead of her usual dresses, she’s in sensible black pants and she looks as if she’s just woken up. Her gaze draws from Jon to Rhaegal. She clicks her tongue, making a particular sound, at which Rhaegal groans, shifting again. She repeats it and the dragon stands, moving away, and taking flight. 

“He likes you,” Daenerys says without the usual pomp and circumstance. 

Jon can’t really deny it. He assumes those who the dragons don’t like, don’t live very long in their presence. In the end, uncomfortable with Daenerys’ heavy brow and questioning gaze, he says, “Gods only know why.”

“I doubt gods have anything to do with it,” she replies, looking away. “He was born in the wastelands beyond Lazhar on the Great Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre. Far from the eyes of the old Gods and the new.”

Turned away from him as she is, her hair pulled into tight braids, unyielding to the wind, she does not appear as if she’s really there. An apparition at most, a voice from a distance, one that’s strangely familiar. Wherever her thoughts have wondered, it’s obvious Jon isn’t with her either. 

He looks towards the horizon. The sky is growing brighter but great clouds have amassed overhead, a passing shower that’s threatening to come down at any moment. 

“Drogon...” Jon offers. 

“Drogo’s namesake. He was my husband.” Her eyes, when she looks at him, are old, older than both their ages combined, as if she’s seen centuries and carries them within her pockets. “I climbed atop my husband’s funeral pyre with them as eggs. The wood burned out, but I didn’t. And I had three of them with me.”

Another unlikely thing in the sea of incredulous and unbelievable. That’s how Jon knows it’s true. A world away a woman hatches three dragon eggs and Jon finds a direwolf with pups south of the Wall. She grows to become Dothraki queen, and Jon dies. They couldn’t be more opposite. And yet, it seems the same incredulous line colors their pages: whitewalkers, dragons, red witches, and faceless men.

“What did Ser Davos mean when he was introducing you?”

Jon sighs, self-conscious. He can’t hold a candle to her. “Nothing particularly as awe-inspiring as being the Unburnt.”

Daenerys looks at him and hums. In the distance, he sees Drogon and Rhaegal returning. As they pass overhead the rain starts to fall, and he sees Daenerys’ mouth form into a downcurl. This morning, she won’t be riding. 

Wordlessly, Jon follows after her back into the Keep. Before they’re down the first flight of stairs, he sees Varys’ bald head glinting from water.

He bows his head, and says, “A raven arrived for King Snow.”

####  -

Situations of high-importance are familiar. However, dealing with Mance Ryder, managing Stannis, though the man was as straightforward as any northman, and organizing thousands of the Free Folk, doesn’t even come close to the feeling of pure gobsmacked urgency that rushes through him as he holds Sansa’s letter. 

He knows the time has come for Jon to return home. He can linger no longer. He must prepare his people for the attack. The news have come at the worst possible moment. 

Tyrion walks into the room followed by Jorah who, it seems, is his friend. Davos is behind them and he steps towards Jon while the other two move towards Daenerys’ chair.    
  
“It’s time,” Jon says and feels himself shudder. The words he’s still staring at blur and twists and lose meaning. Something in Jon cracks, and it sounds like the crackle of glaciers that followed their ship in the Shivering Sea.

He passes the letter to Davos who reads it out loud.    
  
“Your grace, I respectfully request to return to Winterfell. We must prepare at once,” Jon says the moment Davos is done. 

Tyrion looks at him, at Daenerys, then says hastily, “Don’t be a fool, Snow. Didn’t you come here to ask for aid?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Jon says. “You may not get to Winterfell in time even if you did not have Cersei to contend with.”

“Jon--” 

“You understand,” Daenerys cuts Tyrion off, “that I cannot have enemies to the north, should you make an alliance with Cersei.”

Jon sighs. He wishes he had something in his hands to squeeze. “You won’t have enemies to the north then, your grace.”

He sees her eyebrows rising. 

Jon understands he’s under pressure even though he’s had time to ponder over Daenerys’ offer. Hasty decisions, often, get people killed. But he doesn’t have another week to think it over, or even a day. He doesn’t have time at all. So he makes a decision he hopes is right. 

“If what you said is true,” Jon starts, “then I see no issue in allying the north with your cause.”

“Then--”

“The issue of White Walkers remain. I must go north. And if I fail, the dead will march onto the Peaks, the Reach, and Dorne itself.”

Daenerys’ lips thin. “You believe this that much?”

“I believe what I saw, your grace. I only wish I could show you as well.”

Daenerys’ eyes spark. She leans into her chair and says, “Then show me.”

“What?” John hears Tyrion croak next to her. 

“If you can go north of the Wall, capture one of these creatures, and show one of them to me, I will make temporary peace with Cersei and march my army north to help you.”

“Your grace--” Varys starts but one movement of her hand cuts him off. 

Tentatively, Tyrion says, “My sister isn’t exactly someone who...holds peace talks.”

“That’s why you will be there to convince her,” Daenerys says. She turns back to Jon and folds her hands in her lap, as if saying,  _ this is as much as I can do for you _ . 

“But who will go on this mission?” Davos questions. 

“I will,” Jorah says, who has kept quiet the whole time. Daenerys’ face shifts to confusion and absolute concern. Yet, she does not talk him out of it or outright forbid it. 

“Then I must go as well,” Jon decides.

“Jon, really, you are King now--” Tyrion starts to protest but Jon only gives him a look. “I am, after all, the only one of you who has ventures beyond the Wall.”

That seems to be the convincing argument. 

Going north is stupid and dangerous. Hunting for a wight is even worse. Jon has seen how they operate and behave in accordance to hidden strings pulled by the White Walkers. It’s still the best chance he has for the North to not only win but survive the War.


	2. ii

From Dragonstone, they sail to White Harbor. Jon takes the chance to send a raven to Sansa, informing her of the mission, before they continue up the coast to Eastwatch.

Last time Jon was there, it had been a poorly manned partially dilapidated castle in a state of consistent disuse and neglect, much like all other castles on the Wall. When he walks into the courtyard, the first thing he notes is that someone fixed up the stables before he hears a loud bang that steals his attention. 

Tormund stands at the top of the stairs, eyes wide with shock. “ _ Vranjska _ ,” he shouts, and he sounds as happy as Jon feels.

Only a moment passes before Tormund barrels into him. He would have been knocked off his feet had Jon not opened his arms in anticipation of this, and gripped him tightly. Jon laughs, letting himself bury his face in Tormund’s furs. It’s been too long.

Tormund’s hand is on the back of his neck, in his hair, and for a space between breaths, Jon imagines they’re alone. He wishes to do nothing than cup his face and kiss him. Instead he counts the lingering seconds and reluctantly pulls away, back to the light of day. 

He sees Tormund’s warm eyes, still alive and bright. Tormund bends in a familiar fashion, surely wanting to do the same thing as Jon, and he has just the time to say,  _ “Not in front of everyone _ .” 

Tormund throws his gaze over Jon’s shoulder. There’s only Davos, Gendry, whom the knight had picked up from King’s Landing, and Jorah. Though he trusts Davos, he has not yet learned what kind of men the other two are and he cannot risk anything. 

Instead of a kiss, Tormund briefly presses his forehead to Jon’s before his hands fall away. Continuing the conversation in the old tongue he says,  _ “Who’re the other two?” _

“ _ The young man is the previous king’s bastard son,”  _ Jon replies while trying to catalog if there’s anything different about Tormund. He’s changed his furs some but Jon doesn’t know if it’s intentional or not. “ _ The old man is the queen’s soldier. _ ”

Tormund cocks his head, unimpressed. “ _ At least you’re here. I’m happy to see you.” _

Jon can’t keep the smile from his face even if he wished he could. From the corner of his eye he sees something shifting, and he catches the sight of two red eyes just in time to see Ghost trudding down the stairs. He brushes against Tormund’s leg and Jon kneels down so the direwolf can knock their heads together and rub his face all over Jon’s. He hughs Ghost, brushing his spotless white fur and scratching behind his ear. He’s missed him too much.

“Come,” he says in common, looking up at Tormund. “We have something to discuss.”

Getting back to his feet, Jon nods to the three men behind him, signaling they follow, then falls in step with Tormund. 

Jon’s eyes catch on other little obvious reparations around the castle from the rooftops to the woodwork; he knows Free Folk craftsmen and trusts the reparations durable. The guards in the courtyard are mostly Free Folk as well, and the fact becomes only starker as they proceed to the inner bowels of the castle.

“It was shitty when we got here,” Tormund explains as they pass the hallways that remind Jon too much of Castle Black. “Took us a while to fix up the worst of it. Now, at least, you can stay warm.”

Tormund gives Jon a significant look that trails down to his shoes and up to Jon’s face.  _ “Thank fucking Gods you finally grew sensible _ .”

“ _ I grew a habit, _ ” Jon retorts.

They finally slip into the dining hall where a large hearth blazes, warming up the room. “I’ll get us something to eat,” Tormund tells Jon, and disappears in the direction of what must be the kitchen. 

He takes the chance to put down his things and sit, though he feels nothing but alive with energy and the need to stretch his legs after such a long time on a ship. Ghost follows after him and curls underneath the table, just like he used to do as a pup, pressing his large face to Jon’s knees and asking to be pet. 

Jorah, who had mostly stayed silent during their trip now says, “Your friend is...” 

“One of the Free Folk chieftains that lead their clans south of the Wall,” Jon replies, removing his gloves so he can feel Ghost’s soft fur under his fingertips.

The man nods and looks at Davos who in turns looks pointedly at Gendry. Whatever their gazes are saying, Jon is not privy to the meaning.

“I’ve never thought I’d see the Wall,” the young man says, still huddling into his coat. 

“It grows on you,” Davos replies. 

“Like mold,” Jon adds, and Davos chuckles. 

“I didn’t think you’d speak their language,” says Jorah. “Or that they’d let you.”

Jon sees Tormund pushing at the door with his back, carrying more bowls than he has hands. He stands up to help him set it all down on the table before he sees a familiar face following behind him, carrying drinking horns.

The moment their hands are empty, Munda hugs him and Jon laughs, returning it. He’d not expected to see her here and says as much, to her affront. 

“ _ I’m fifteen now, Jon,” _ she clicks her tongue, in that sort of way Anka does when joking. Though her face has remained the same, she’s grown taller than him, taking on her mother’s muscular build. “ _ Papa tells me you’ve married. Congratulations.” _

_ “Thank you, Munda,” _ Jon says, feeling inexplicably touched. 

She smiles, small and private, before her grin goes wider. It’s too reminiscent of Tormund. Jon knows he’s going to be made into a joke. “ _ So, I should start calling you tata now?” _

Despite what he’d expected, Jon feels heat climb the back of his neck. “Jon _ is just fine, isn’t it?” _

Munda laughs. Tormund, who’s taken a seat, says, “ _ Stop badgering him and go away _ .”

“ _ I can’t believe you got a spring chicken _ ,” she replies viciously, before she looks back at Jon, nods, and turns to leave.

“ _ Stop repeating everything your mother tells you!” _ Tormund yells back, but Munda strategically closes the door behind her, shielding her from the abuse. 

Amused, Jon sits to Tormund’s right and asks, “ _ What does spring chicken mean?” _

Tormund sighs then says, “ _ Her mother’s been making fun of me for marrying someone much younger than me. Spring chicken means you _ .”

Jon laughs. “ _ Anka doesn’t hold back does she _ .”

“ _ She’s not one to talk.” _

He looks down at the bowl of stew and breaks up the bread to let it soak in. If anything in Castle Black has thought him, it’s to eat everything he can, and to never make the mistake of expecting fresh bread. 

“I take it that was your daughter, Tormund,” Davos says conversationally. “Last I saw her, she was a head shorter.”

“We’re getting old,” Tormund notes and looks at Jon, conspiratorially. 

Only once Jon starts eating does he realize just how hungry he is. Focusing on the food, he lets easy conversation float above him, which mostly involves Davos and Tormund making small talk. Somewhere along the lines they’d become friends and Tormund had spent enough time in Winterfell to solidify that friendship. 

“Why did you come here?” Tormund asks, and Davos ends up explaining, in short strokes, their plan. They need to go beyond the Wall, capture a wight, ferry it back to Dragonstone.

“Isn’t it your job to talk him out of stupid fucking ideas like these?” Tormund bristles, looking at Davos. Jon would laugh but he knows Tormund is being serious. He will be having words for Jon when they’re in private. 

“I’ve been failing in that job as of late,” Davos admits.

Tormund shakes his head and turns to Jon. “So which queen do you need to convince, the one with the dragons or the one who fucks her brother?” 

Isn’t that the question? Though she’d sanctioned the mission, Daenerys will not help them if she doesn’t see proof of the danger Jon had talked to her about. “Both,” he replies. 

“And how many men did you bring?” 

Jon looks at the people at the table. “Not enough.”

“The big woman?” Tormund asks, as if the rest of them just don’t cut it. Jon laughs softly. He really did miss Tormund. 

“We were hoping some of your men could help,” Jorah interrupts. 

Tormund is unimpressed by that, Jon can see by the set of his eyebrows. Instead of acknowledging what Jorah said, or the man himself, he continues looking at John, his gaze searching.

“You really want to go out there? Again?” 

It isn’t a question of want but of need. What Jon wants is peace and quiet. He wants to go beyond the Wall, be free to roam and be with Tormund but to do so now is nothing but a death sentence signed twice over while peace, and their victory, is as distant as Dorne’s shores.

He knows that Tormund realizes this. It’s in his eyes. They remain to be the most honest things Jon has ever had the privilege of seeing. 

“We need to win this war,” Jon says, feeling all that which he cannot express: regret, love, determination.

Tormund releases a long sigh but he does not argue. 

“Well. You’re not the only fuckers wanting to go out there.” He stands. “Follow me.”

####  -

Whatever Jon had expected to find in the cells underneath Eastwatch, it wasn’t Sandor Clegane or the Brotherhood Without Banners. Though the people in the Brotherhood talk about the Lord of Light, he’s never taken Clegane as a fanatic or as someone suicidal which gives their words more gravity than they realize. Why he would join them is a question John wishes he knew the answer to. Yet, it matters little. As long as they’re willing to cross the Wall, Jon wouldn’t care if Clegane told him ghosts whispered it in his ear. 

“We’ve already lost too much light today. We’ll be leaving at dawn. Get some rest,” he tells his three comapanions. They’ve been shown their own rooms. Though Davos looks as if he wants to say something, shooting looks over Jon’s shoulder at Tormund, Gendry hesitates, and Jorah appears inexplicably uncomfortable, they acknowledge the dismissal for what it is. 

Jon, instead of resting, turns to Tormund so the man can accompany him to the courtyard so he can talk with the people. Ghost sniffles a few times, and then disappears in an opposite direction. Jon is not concerned, it seems his wolf has made home in the castle.

Finally alone, Tormund asks, “ _ You’ve met the Dragon Queen. What does she want?” _

_ “She’ll only fight beside if I can convince her the threat is real _ ,” Jon replies, remembering his conversations with Daenerys with grim ease. 

“ _ Did she ask you to kneel?” _

Jon nods in reply. “ _ It was expected.” _

Tormund watches him, and it seems he knows Jon so well that he doesn’t need to ask what Jon did or didn’t do.

“ _ You’ve spent too much time with the Free Folk. Now you don’t like kneeling.” _ Tormund gives him a look, but the topic of their conversation far outweighs the implied joke. “ _ Mance Rayder was a brave man. A proud man. King-beyond-the-Wall who never bent the knee. How many of his people died for his pride? _ ”

Jon understands. He saw Hardhome. “ _ I know. I was the who tried to convince him to bend the knee to Stannis.” _

They continue down to the corridor that opens up to the terasses. 

“ _ And _ ?” Tormund asks, stopping just before they descend into the courtyard. 

“ _ It’s not as it seems. She wants me to be King in the North. It’s complicated. _ ” He promises, “ _ I’ll explain later _ .”

They walk into the courtyard where most of the Free Folk have gathered. At this point most of them know him, if not as King Crow, then because he’d spent enough time in their camp. He is as frank with them as he can be. He needs men to carry the box they will be transporting the wight in, and he needs rangers who know the terrain.

Where even a mad man would say no, four agree. Four, and Tormund.

Jon keeps quiet, thinking up everything he can say to Tormund to dissuade him from going, until they’re safely behind closed doors. Tormund’s room is comfortably small and warm and so obviously his what with the furs and skins thrown around everywhere, his axes sitting on the table and beard oils he must have smuggled from Witnerfell near the washbasin. 

Before Jon can begin his tirade, before he is even properly inside the room, Tormund pushes him against the doors and kisses his quickly, desperately, hands clamping Jon’s hips. All of the day’s problems pale. In the face of crackling heat Jon has not felt for months, he can do nothing but tremble and open his mouth and kiss back, let Tormund’s passion sweep his mind of unimportant things that aren’t the two of them.

Jon touches Tormund’s face before they find another destination, clinging to Tormund’s shoulders until they’re hugging, bodies pressed so close together they might be mistaken for one. 

Feeling Tormund under his hands, alive and well, brings Jon more comfort than any Dragonstone’s silks and duck feathers ever could. He sighs when Tormund kisses his brow and looks up. 

“I’ve missed you,” Jon admits. He’s missed Tormund’s presence; the undeniable constant feeling of being loved, earned by nothing more than breathing.

Tormund smiles and squeezes Jon in his arms into another hug. Jon has missed this as well. He never knew he’d grown so accustomed to such casual intimacy until it was gone. 

And, more obviously than anything, he’s missed Tormund’s heat. After months going without, it’s a complete shock to feel so much so soon, and so when Tormund’s hold loosens, Jon cannot stop the shudder that courses through him, his body seizing, chasing after Tormund’s touch as if it has a mind of its own. 

A strangled gasp escapes his mouth, turning into a low hum when Tormund’s hand cups his face. He leans his head into it and his eyes close for a moment. When he opens them Tormund’s gaze has grown from yearning to something else, sending a sharp note down Jon’s spine. He realizes, quite suddenly, that one of Tormund’s thighs is being pressed between his legs. 

“So it’s like this, hmm?” Tormund says, low in his throat so it appears his voice comes deep from his belly. His thumb sweeps over Jon’s lower lip.

“Yeah,” Jon admits, feeling light-headed. Crowded as he is, so close to Tormund, feeling desire unspool in his gut and spread through his veins, he can only say, “I want you. I always want you.”

The kiss, when Tormund relents, is so tender Jon threatens to break under it. It teethers on the edge of too much, but never goes over. Jon is starved for Tormund’s affections and touches, and he accepts everything that is so willingly, heartbreakingly, given to him. 

Somewhere between one breath and other the kiss metamorphosizes, teeth scraping over lips and tongues pressing together, the air growing thick with want as Jon squeezing his thighs around Tormund’s. 

With trembling, eager fingers, Jon starts pulling at buckles and buttons that hold Tormund’s furs together. The blind navigation is staled when Tormund passes a distracting hand to the front of his pants, urging Jon to rock his hips if only a little more to get the pressure he wants. 

It only makes Jon that more anxious to rid Tormund of as much clothing as he can. 

Heavy furs hit the ground just as Tormund passes his hands over Jon’s ribs. The belts holding his cape loosen just before the weight falls from Jon’s back. The clasps on his shoulders that hold together his leather armour follow next. 

With a hand on Tormund’s shoulder, and one of Tormund’s on his waist, he steps over the clothes, and is led further into the room. Both of them are impartial to dance, but they know each other well enough to determine what the other wants. 

Usually, when Jon is pushed to sit on the bed, he knows to start unpeeling the layers keeping his skin from frostbite and searching out the oils while Tormund shucks off the skins and feeds the fireplace. Tonight, he cannot stand such a distance. He drags Tormund to the bed with him, writhing and squirming until their clothes are off, and Tormund can pin him down and kiss him again. 

Tormund’s hands on his skin are larger than Jon remembers them. Tormund himself is larger, his thick waist wide enough to have Jon’s legs spreading for him, his shoulders two mountains over which he can see nothing, not even the ceiling, sheltered from the brunt of life. He’s enveloped and held, and it feel safe to be small, and it feels good to let Tormund kiss him however he wishes. 

Jon feels as if he’s been set over hot coals where he can coil and burrow in the heat and let himself finally be warm. This is not a fire that burns; this is a fire that consumes. 

Jon is aware of Tormund calling his name. There’s a mouth on his cheek and a soft laugh in his ear when Tormund asks, “You with me?”

“I’m always with you,” Jon replies reflexively, wishing it were true.

He sees Tormund softening, and so prompted, guides him with a hand on his cheek to another kiss. It’s brief and sweet, and tells Jon far more than it should. He smiles, smoothing one of Tormund’s bushy red brows. 

Tormund lingers, if for a moment, before he’s taking Jon’s hand in his own, and not as much falling, as he’s strategically placing more weight on top of him. Jon muffles a goan when he feels Tormund’s heavy cock pressing into his hip. 

There’s oil; Tormund grabs at it from below the bed, and their cocks rutting together, as Tormund places bites marks over his shoulder and chest, fingers worrying at his skin as if Tormund’s forgotten the texture of it and is trying to re-acquaint himself with its qualities. 

Jon’s hand travels the wide expanse of Tormund’s back, tracing the spine up where he can rub the back of Tormund’s neck, while the other goes south to grip his heated flesh, joining in Tormund’s efforts to bring them release. When they’re together ecstasy is never far. 

His heart is pounding in his ears but he is far too keen on listening to the soft gasps that leave Tormund’s throat, his groans and the low noise in his throat. They strain towards pleasure, reach for the release even though it’s inevitable. And yet, there’s always a revelation in each wave that rocks through them, the crease of Tormund’s brow, the open mouthed wet kiss he forgets they were sharing in exchange for a moan, for a shudder, for a stutter of hips. Pleasure is not unfamiliar, but it’s new each time they reach its peaks, and each time they don’t fall as much as they float down the summit. 

Release cools on their bellies but, unbothered, Jon simply tugs Tormund down until the man is lying on top of him. Breathing is difficult but for now it’s not of much import. 

No, Jon thinks. There is no divinity in these four walls and the four poster bed, or the dancing flames that lick the rocks that frame its cage. That’s why this love between them is all the better for it.

Tormund presses his heavy forehead to Jon’s shoulder. “This wasn’t the plan,” he says, with good humor. 

“Liar,” Jon accusses, mouth curled in a smile.

Tormund chuckles. “Not like this at least.”

The hush in the room is defeated only by the crackling of burning wood in the hearth. Jon hooks a leg over Tormund’s hip and he turns so he may not look at it. 

“Like what then?” Jon asks, brash, careless, drunk on post-sex relief and wamth. 

Tormund chuckles against his shoulder and kisses it, kisses his neck, and his collar bones, down his ribs until his head is pressing into his belly -- into the softest bits of him. He looks at Jon, and his eyes are so soft and so intense Jon feels pinned. Tormund keeps kissing him, kissing parts of him, his thighs, his knee, his calf, even when he leans back onto his haunches, even when he spreads him on his fingers, even when he, inevitably, sinks into him. So close, so intense, Jon can do nothing else but shudder under his gaze, give in to his lips that redden his own. 

He buys silence and peace with a hand around Tormund’s middle, pressing himself against Tormund as if he might burrow into him. He closes his eyes, and lets the pleasure and heat course through his feeling body; an irresistible reward after so long going without it. 

-

Eventually, they have to move. Only once they pull away, Tormund to feed the fire and get cleaned up, does it hit him how easy it is to be himself with the man. It’s  _ uncomplicated _ . He doesn’t have to watch his words, check his expressions, hold back his emotions. He’s stripped to the bare bones and Tormund sees it and loves him for it. 

Jon isn’t one to ever get choked up but he feels such a swell of emotion in his chest he has to breathe through it. He focuses back to what he’d wanted to say to Tormund. 

“You shouldn’t come with us,” he says, sitting up in the bed. 

“Tormund gives him a look, thrown over his shoulder. “If I told you ‘no’ every time you had a bad idea--”

“You don’t  _ believe _ in bad ideas.”

Tormund laughs. “Just because I go through with them doesn’t mean i don’t know they’re bad.” 

Water trickles down in its basin as Tormund wrings a washcloth out. The night breeze is potent as it filters in from the closed windows. It has gotten dark quickly; talking with the people took longer than expected. 

They’ve not told the others where they can find Jon should they need him, Jon realizes belatedly. He imagines Davos would want to speak with him before tomorrow. However, his worry for Tormund’s safety overwhelms his worry for secrecy. 

“It  _ is _ a bad idea. It’s also the only one we’ve got, if we want to fight the walkers. But just because I am putting myself in danger doesn’t mean you should too.”

“If you die out there, we all die. Then it won’t matter if I have a day or a month of bought time.”

Jon watches as Tormund walks towards him, belly wet from the water. Jon feels the back of his neck tingling. Desire, when it comes to Tormund, has never been very far either. 

Jon reaches up and takes Tormund’s hand. “It matters to me.”

Tormund’s fingers are heartbreakingly gentle when they wrap around his own. He squeezes them and turns towards Jon, towering over him. “You don’t understand. If you die out there, I am dying with you.”

“Tormund--”

“But I’m going because I’ve always believed in your crazy fucking ideas. If anyone can make it back it’s you. I’ll just be there to keep you from doing something stupid. Besides, you will need a guide.”

Jon feels so hopelessly fond he laughs despite the horrendous situation. “If I can’t dissuade you, the only thing I can do is thank you.”

Tormund’s eyes soften and he leans down to place a kiss on Jon’s mouth. “You never need to thank me,  _ vranjska _ . I trust you as much as you trust me.”

_ That’s a lot of trust _ , Jon thinks before Tormund kisses him again and presses him down into the mattress. He yelps when the cold rag connects with his belly, and Tormund guffaws.

####  -

The lands beyond the Wall are just as Jon had remembered them being. Not so long ago he’d been travelling the coast heading for Hadhome. With miles of untrodden snow sprawling before them, frozen over from the low temperatures and carried by storm and wind, the only guidelines mountains and canyons that stretch next to them, Jon finally feels at home. 

He takes deep breaths and he can finally breathe. The air had been so stale on Dragonstone, nauseating, made worse on their trip by ship. Here, there are no fears of coffins or crypts, no tightness in his chest, no bad dreams or visions that chase him to wakefulness. Beyond the Wall, he is free.

If it weren’t for the squeaking of snow underneath unaccustomed feet, Jon could have pretended Tormund and he were travelling with his clan. It’s a good dream, one he desperately hopes will come true. 

Tormund seems to share the sentiment. “Beautiful, eh?” he tells Gendry. “I can breathe again. Down south, the air smells like pig shit.”

Fondly, Jon says, “You've never been down south. I would’ve gotten you that red coat.”

“I've been to Winterfell,” Tormund retorts.

“That's the North.” 

Jon laughs when Tormund blows a raspberry, as if he were no older than five. They share that sentiment as well. Though he’d been taught otherwise, for Jon the true north has become everything beyond the Wall. Yet, he knows, he must keep his opinion to himself. The northmen lords are proud, and just as a king can be made he can be unmade.

Gendry, struggling more than the rest, asks, “How do you live up here? How do you keep your balls from freezing off?”

“You got to keep moving. That's the secret. Walking's good, fighting's better, fucking's best.” He looks at Jon slyly. 

Jon remembers the nights spent in camp well. It had been just after they’d gotten together and Jon had a handful of bravery to spend on hope.

Gendry sounds confused when he says, “There's not a living woman within a hundred miles of here.”

Tormund laughs. He knocks his shoulder into Jon’s and says, “We have to make do with what we've got.”

Instead of laughing, Gendry just appears to be confused. It’s amusing, if nothing else. 

“This one is maybe not so smart,” Tormund tells Jon, as if he’s confiding a secret. 

Jon laughs, and says, “Lucky for us then, isn’t it?”

Tormund makes an unamused sound in the back of his throat. They’re passing over the top ridge of one of the hills, and the sun, foreigner during winter, shines so strongly Jon can see the ice crystals glinting. 

He wishes they’d taken snow-blindness into account. He’d been certain that the winter sky would be far too occupied in making snowfall. 

“I can’t believe you’ve missed this,” Tormund grumbles.

“Haven’t  _ you  _ as well?” Jon asks, looking into the sprawling whiteness in front of them.

Tormund is quiet. Both of them know that, when this is all over, perhaps they will have a chance to roam the way they want to roam now. With only the two of them, shoulder to shoulder, they can pretend. For a little while at least. 

“Aye,” Tormund agrees in the end.

####  -

If they had any luck to begin with, though Jon’s fate has never been highly favorable of easy endings and simple solutions, it’s gone the moment they think they’re victorious. Dread creeps into his heart and settles once he sees they’re surrounded by the dead and it refuses to leave as they bid the time doing nothing. 

They had been careless. Worse, they were overconfident. Jon should have listened to Clegane when he said he saw a whole procession. He should have known they would be swarmed.

Thoros dies on the first morning and any hope that had stubbornly lingered within Jon goes with him. The Lord of Light that had led him, Barric, and the Hound beyond the Wall has betrayed them. What god doesn’t spare his priest? What god leads the faithful to slaughter? 

He wonders if it’s the same one that has raised Jon from death’s sleep, or if there is more than one God of Light, living in all those who worship him that doesn’t do as he wishes as much as he does what the people believe he can.

After Thoros’ body burns out, he settles next to Tormund whether it’s to sleep, to take watch, or to eat. They speak, for a time, in common, but when he sees nobody cares to hear what they have to say, even that falls away, leaving only hushed whispers in the old tongue. 

It’s on the third day when Jon admits, “ _ I hate that you were right. _ ”

“ _ Which part?”  _ Tormund asks, sarcastically. “ _ The part where I said we’re dying together, or the part where I said we’re crazy?” _

“ _ I thought I could spare the northmen. Not just fight the war but win it. Mance Ryder died so his people wouldn’t go to war in the first place, and I will die for far less _ .”

Tormund takes a long breath and an even longer sigh. He bumps Jon’s shoulder, and offers his hand. Jon should refuse it. He has tried to remain unaffectionate; grinding out days and counting the little touches. But there’s no need for secrecy anymore. They will all be dead by the morning, if not by the hands of the walkers, then because they’re running out of food.

It’s not as if they’re not obvious, for anyone looking. He’s wrapped in Tormund’s favor --the skins he’d won for killing a bear and gifted Jon on their journey to Castle Black crown Jon’s shoulders.

Quite unceremoniously, Jon takes Tormund’s hand just like he’d held it in front of Winterfell’s weirwood tree when they said their vows. He wishes he could have given him more than a handful of hours in Eastwatch, regrets the wasted time they’d spent shying away from each other during this cursed expedition, but above all, he hates that Tormund will be forced to watch him die. 

“ _ My little crow _ ,” Tormund says but whatever else he’d wanted to say gets swallowed up by the silence. 

“ _ Well,”  _ he says what feels like hours later, “ _ your sister is smart. She will know what to do.” _

_ “You were always on her side, _ ” Jon replies. 

Tormund cracks a smile. “ _ Can you blame me? She’s smarter than you. Smart people don’t go north looking for the dead _ .”

It’s then that Clegane finally snaps at them and says, “Will you just speak fucking normal?”

Jon’s head snaps over to where the man’s standing and feels any humor that might have been rising in his chest sink low and disappear. 

Though Jon wants to retorts, it’s Tormund that says, “Jealous?”

“Of fucking what?” Clegane frowns. “All you two fuckers are doing is yapping, looking content to die out here.”

Jon wishes he could be angry. He wishes he could stand, talk to Clegane, curse at him, do anything he might have done in Winterfell but anger is distant, unimportant in the face of sorrow held back only by Tormund’s presence and his hand clenched in Jon’s. He understands Clegane now in that sort of way only a man who has died and come back to life can. Clegane has not decided to die yet. There are things left unfinished. Promises to keep, if not to anyone else then to himself. Furthermore, there’s always a fear of where he will go, and Clegane doesn’t seem to believe it will be to the Light of the Seven.

Once they fall, they will be joining the Night King’s army, and neither Tormund nor Jon will be able to keep their vows. He hates that he will die not knowing what will happen to the northmen and Sansa once she takes the crown, if such a time comes at all, hates that he will become a twisted, mindless, beast who will kill his own people.

Regret is a familiar feeling. One he’d felt before dying the first time, one that still oftentimes coils around his thighs and doses him with its venom until he’s paralized. The only thing keeping it at bay now is the fact that talking with Tormund has always been the biggest distraction in his life. 

Beric places a hand on Clegane’s shoulder and says something to him quietly that has his frown even more pronounced. Beric has died as well. Multiple times at that. He must understand Clegane just as Jon does. 

Clegane’s eyes jump between Tormund and Jon, then he rises a disbelieving eyebrow at Beric. Finally, he shrugs the hand off, growls something to him and goes to the other end of the island. Beric sighs and sits down closer to them then he was before.

“Forgive him. He doesn’t do well with...anything even approaching happiness.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Jon says, squeezing Tormund’s hand. 

####  -

The kind of history books Jon was taught from have never had frivolous and unchecked information. The material quite dry and uninteresting, it recounted stories of battles across the Seven Kingdoms with a particularly dry addition of the army sizes, death counts, tactics, and, depending on the book, even such details as the number of horse deaths, arrows used, and the size of the battlefield. 

Some of that information, Jon understands now, is important. However, the truly important thing has never been written: first-hand experience. When talking about battle, it has always been described as glorious or noble, usually by people who were never anywhere near the battlefield. 

If they’d been even in the vicinity, they would have had a quite different recollection. Killing, and by extension dying, has never been anything but messy. Nobody ever says how much it stinks, how blood seeps into the soil, how loud it is. Nobody, Jon thinks as he tries to fight off the wights that try to grab at him, ever talks about the sheer terrifying claustrophobia of it all.

When Ramsay’s men cornered them and they’d been pushed against one another, packed so tightly air was stolen from his lungs, it was more probable he’d die from being trampled, or from the terrible sweltering heat of heaving bodies, then die by blade.

Later, he’d think privately on it as the worst battle he’s ever fought. But that feeling of elbows jostling into his back, pressed into stranger’s chest, shoulder to shoulder, his vision narrowed and going dark when he could only look up for light was nothing compared to the terrifying clatter of bones grinding against other bones and screeching of inhuman months that cover his whole vision. 

Edd was right. Neither Tormund nor Jon are people that take things lying down. But just because they fight doesn’t mean they don’t lose. In a matter of moments the dead overwhelm them despite the obsidian weapons, despite his valyrian steel or Baric’s flaming sword. He can barely protect himself, and so his heart gives a sickening lurch when he sees Tormund falling. The wights claw at his legs, trying to drag him into the lake and under the ice and yet he cannot help him. His cries for help almost drive Jon to distraction. The worst thing is that he has to turn away from him -- he’s too far away and has too many wights to contend with. 

It’s Clegane who helps him to his legs. Just in time as well, it seems, before a familiar shriek fills the air. It hits their ears a moment before dragonfire hits the wights. The three dragons crowd Jon’s view, their wings darkening the white winter sky. Drogon and Rhaegal fly in circles, dragonfire burning the wights and snow while Viserion lands, one of his wings lowering in a way Jon has seen Drogon do so Daenerys can climb him. 

“Get on the dragon!” Jon shouts. Viserion keeps the wights away from him via fire but it’s a risky endeavor. If they melt the ice they might as well be dead. 

Out of all of them, Jorah is the first one to follow his command. Jon is sure it has more to do with his familiarity with the dragons than Jon’s authority but he’s glad for it all the same. Tormund is the next one to look at Jon and listen to him. Haste seems to inhibit wariness, because the rest follow, carrying with them the captured wight. 

“Jon!” Tormund shouts, his hand stretched out, ready to grab him. Before Jon can get close, Viserion screeches and takes flight, the ice cracking from his takeoff. 

The dragon’s large wings flap and he’s a speck in the distance before Jon can even comprehend it. He hears Daenerys shouting something, but her voice is carried by the wind and the wights screaming in his face as Jon tries to fight them off. He’s alone, Jon thinks, and tries not to think about the last time he died. 

The burst of air from dragon wings too close to the surface of the lake is strong enough to send the wights back. It nearly topples Jon as well. Rhaegal screeches in that sort of way a parent might chastise their children, when he lands on the now-empty island. 

There is not time to think. Jon climbs with his sword still in hand and holsters it before grabbing onto Rhaegal’s scales like he’s seen Daenerys do before. 

It’s when he looks ahead that he sees a blue shape in the sea of white and black. His skin crawls and a chill descends into the pit in his stomach. The Night King is there, standing, watching him. 

His expression doesn’t change. His stance is as frozen as the tundra he haunts. And yet, Jon feels such hatred wash over him, it’s as if the creature has sent it directly to his mind. 

Rhaegal’s wings work and Jon’s view of the Night King is obscured as they take flight. 

The feeling of riding a dragon is exhilarating. Rhaegal is warm, despite the temperatures, and a familiar insulator for the chilly air that hits his face. He can feel his wings, feel the muscles, can, for a moment, even foresee which way he might go in the tilt of his body. 

He glimpses at Daenerys, a stark white dot against Drogon’s dark red scales, and feels hysterical laughter crowding his throat. He’s riding a dragon. He’s going to  _ live _ . 

Drogon screeches, communicating with Rhaegal, who gives a tight turn. In that moment Jon sees the Night King and something in his hands. He recognizes it as a lance only a moment before he throws it directly at him. He watches the pinprick grow bigger and knows, somehow, that it will be landing right in his heart. 

Jon thinks,  _ Is this what I’ve felt since I’ve returned to life? _ He always felt a shard of ice has been lodged in his heart but he’s never thought it was foretelling of this moment. Perhaps the Lord of Light had tried to warn him but Jon had been deaf to it. 

His line of sight is broken by Rhaegal twisting around and giving a single, air-splitting shriek. It cuts out halfway through and Jon has only a moment to shift before the lance comes through Rhaegal’s scales, bloody and glinting an unnatural ice-blue color. 

Dread has only a moment to register in Jon’s mind before they’re falling. All of Rhaegal’s magnificent weight tips forward, the air growing harsh with the speed. Somehow, in the air, Rhaegal twists as if to protect him, and he dives into the frozen lake, breaking the ice, and plunging them both into it’s dark, ice-cold waters.


	3. iii

Death has always been violent. It rips, takes, rarely graceful, rarely a well-honed weapon. It’s a dull cleaver, it’s teeth to the throat, hands around the neck, poison slipped into a chalice. It’s purple colors showing only in the victim’s face, a dagger in the night, a body with a wolf’s head paraded around.

Death is his grandfather and uncle burned alive, it’s his father’s head rolling in King’s Landing and mounted on the gates, Robb’s corpse rotting away unburied, the arrows sticking out of Rickon’s back. It’s Ygritte lost to Ollie’s arrow -- the same Ollie who had in the end sheathed his dagger in Jon’s chest.

Death is a silence after a world screaming at you, numbness after pain.

The furs that were supposed to protect him are now a dead weight on his back, locking around his limbs like iron shackles. For a moment he can see nothing. The water screams in his ears but the drumming of his frantic heart overshadows the worst of it. The tremor he feels from Rhaegal connecting with the bottom of the lake is like hearing the first nail in his coffin -- terrifying.

Jon blinks. Above him, a half-circle of bright white light mocks him, knowing Jon could never reach it.

_ Tormund is alive _, Jon thinks. It’s what’s important. He doesn’t feel the cold. Not really. For a moment, he thinks it would be easier to let go. He has no air, knocked out of his lungs when he’d fallen through the ice. He has no strength, sapped away just like he knew the Shivering Sea would do to him such a long time ago.

This time it could be easy. This time he can choose. It’s a simple choice to make. He can just sink next to Rhaegal and die. That lance was meant for him and he’s unworthy of a dragon’s sacrifice.

His lungs burn. He remembers he still has a duty. To his people, to the people whom he’d rescued, to his Sister, to Winterfell. He’s alive for a reason. Like Baric said, he may not know why but he has to keep going. Even if it means finding the reason himself.

He doesn’t want to leave. Not yet. Not when he has finally something not only to die for, but to _ live _ for. He’s a Stark, and he will not be able to rest until he sees his duty fulfilled.

Jon follows that crescent moon up until he’s breaking the surface for air. It feels like being reborn once more, kicking and screaming, afraid and numb. He drags himself out of the water on shaking limbs. Not today, Jon thinks. Not yet.

#### -

Benjen Stark, Jon thinks as he climbs onto the horse. The shard of ice in his heart has grown thorns and is spreading itself through his whole body.

#### -

There are no dreams. For a while, there’s nothing. Then, a burst of light.

Fire dances in front of his closed eyes, rocking left and right. Jon, a month to the flame, cannot look away. The closer it gets the more Jon feels its heat, and the more warm he feels the quicker it comes, until he’s burning with it, sitting in the pyre meant for Mance Rayder. But Mance is dead and wood doesn’t burn so pleasantly, so completely. Jon feels the fire from inside him, pushing out from his lungs.

He never knew dragons could fall so easily.

But even that fire within him cannot melt the ice that has frozen his heart and keeps it beating. He feels numb but for his hands. He wonders why that is.

#### -

When Jon wakes, it’s to a familiar cabin and a familiar face. If he weren’t exhausted, he thinks he might have started crying, but as it is, all he needs is to look at Tormund to know. He’s alive. That is enough.

“_ Vranjska _ ,” Tormund says, gripping Jon’s hand in his. Then he can see nothing but Tormund’s face, his red hair, feel his prickly beard when he kisses Jon’s face. Jon’s body is numb and in pain, just like the last time he’d woken up to see Tormund after dying. And like last time, Jon thinks, _ Yes, this is right _.

Once Tormund leans back he sees Ghost pressing his head next to his pillow. “Oh, you’re here too.” Ghost blinks at him then nuzzles Jon’s face, coarse tongue licking his cheek.

“Couldn’t leave him,” Tormund says. “Told our men to go to Castle Black. If that fucker got a dragon, we don’t stand a chance in Eastwatch.”

Through the fugue Jon remembers to ask, “Munda?”

“She’s with the people.”

Sighing, Jon forces himself to focus on his surroundings. Slowly, he looks around the familiar cabin. He knows he’s on a ship but not its course.

“Where?”

“Dragon Queen’s ship,” Tormund says. “Heading for King’s Landing.”

He looks at Jon and sighs, shaking his head. It’s difficult to tolerate such a broken expression on his face. “You’re a fucking idiot, Jon Snow. Let me be the first to tell you that.”

Jon knows. He deserves this.

“Next time I offer you my hand and you don’t take it, I’m knocking you over the head and taking you with me, do you understand?”

Despite himself, Jon smiles, squeezing Tormund’s warm hands. He croaks, “Are you going to steal me away?”

“You bastard,” Tormund hisses.

His kiss is sweet and soft despite his words, and tells Jon all of the fear and all of the anxiety of that moment, when Tormund had reached out but Jon didn’t reach back.

“I came back. I always come back,” Jon says, after, trying to reassure him.

Tormund’s laugh is hollow and teetering on broken. “I know that. Doesn’t mean I’m not scared. Doesn’t mean you’ll be given any more lives to spare.”

There’s a knock on the doors, startling him and Tormund both. His husband’s face turns sour. He squeezes Jon’s hand one last time before pulling away. Quickly, he says, “Sansa wrote,” before going to open them.

Just by his posture he knows Tormund is far more tired than he looks. He steps aside to let Daenerys through and nods at Jon before he leaves, closing the doors with him.

Her smile is small and contained, her face frozen in a mask of composure. She sits in Tormund’s vacated chair and says, “You have good friends, Jon Snow. It was difficult getting him away from you for a moment. Afraid I would kill you?”

She raises an eyebrow, her voice going to a soft lilt, that should have been joking; is everything but.

Jon should consider his words, weight them and picks carefully, but he’s tired, he aches, and he feels far too close to cracking. So Jon forces a smile on his face and says, “I should hope so. He is my husband.”

He doesn’t expect the shocked expression on Daenerys’ face. Her eyebrows rise, this time unburdened by sarcasm, mouth parting. Her eyes slip to the doors then back to Jon as if chasing after Tormund’s lingering image. “That’s...a dangerous thing to admit.”

She almost seems concerned, which is both flattering and mortifying.

“I almost died. After extreme injuries, people aren’t very lucid. Talk nonsense, most the time.”

He gives her a pointed look. If he has learned anything about Daenerys it’s that when she loves someone she doesn't hide it and Jon has nothing to be ashamed of. He is her ally now, whatever that’s still worth, and she did say she protects her friends.

“Oh,” she says, and a true amused grin flashes on her face. “Do not worry. Your secret is safe. As are you.”

Jon gives her a grateful smile, and for a moment, they pretend that everything is alright, covering themselves with a blanket of illusion like kids after sleeping hours hiding from infuriated septas. They would have been close in age, growing up.

He sees when the illusion passes, when they turn from friendly to friends, and when reality decides to take away the blanket.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says once her eyes turn from ice to something else, something understanding, something warm. They’re familiar, ancient, and they see him as much as Jon sees Daenerys, and knows there is only so much she can hide. The mask breaks, and her lip wobbles.

“He was my child,” she says, tears welling up.

Before, Jon had thought boys stronger than girls. Boys never cried. But now, he knows it takes strength to weep for what has been lost, to face that loss, to let yourself feel it, and grow from it and to purge yourself for the poison in your veins. Maybe there will not be a funeral for Rhaegal but Daenerys has her bloodletting all the same.

He knows, in that sort of certain way he’s learned anything of import, that seeing Daenerys like this is a privilege.

“I’m so sorry,” Jon says. He takes her hand, and says, “I wish I could take it back. I really do.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “If you hadn't gone, I wouldn't have seen. You have to see it to know. Now I know.”

She wipes her tears with her other hand, and rears back, as if she’s done with crying. No, Jon thinks. She’s a mother. All mothers want vengeance for their killed children. Catelyn Stark had risked her hands for Bran. Anka had gone to war. Cersei had wanted to kill her own brother.

She squeezes Jon’s hand and says with something dark in her voice that sounds like wood cracking in fire, “We are going to destroy the Night King and his army. And we'll do it together. You have my word.”

“Thank you, Daenerys. Thank you.”

She squeezes his hand before letting go. Wryly, she notes, “You have cold hands.”

Her eyes fall on his chest, now bare, where the scars of his Brothers’ betrayal lay bared, before they slide down to Ghost who’s still by his side.

“You lied to me. You really did get stabbed in the heart. Why?”

“Would you have believed me?” Jon asks.

“No, not that. Why did they stab you?” Daenerys says.

“I lead a Free Folk army past the Wall to save them from the walkers. Some brothers in the Watch didn’t approve.”

He watches as Daenerys considers it, then offers her hand to Ghost who sniffs it and turns away, disinterested. She leans back. “Did you do it for him? Tormund.”

“I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

Daenerys nods and stands. “You should rest. At least we have time until we reach King’s Landing. Tyrion succeeded in arranging a meeting with his sister.”

“Yara?” Jon asks. When he left Daenerys last, she’d said she will save both her and Ellaria Sand.

Daenerys smile is tight. “You should not worry about others. For now, worry about yourself.”

“I always worry about my people,” Jon says, poignant. Yara is, after all, of the Iron Islands, but against the Night King, she is his people as any Dornishman can be.

“And if they decide to kill you again?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Jon blinks, unafraid. “There will always be a Stark in Winterfell. If I fail them, my sister won’t.”

Daenerys’ eyes linger on his own. Then she nods, a small smile finding a way on her face. “I look forward to meeting her, one day.”

#### -

Sansa’s letter reads, “Eastwatch is destroyed, the dead march through. Edd is pulling back his men to Winterfell, as are the other lords. We need all we can get. Remember what you told me that night, when the Targaryen seal arrived. Use it.”

It waits for him in White Harbor, once they dock to resupply.

#### -

The numbness has grown terrible. Jon doesn’t notice it at first, thinking it only effects of hypothermia. However once he can stand, walk, dress and go to the deck, he knows it’s not a fixable change within his body. Once manageable, for the most part ignorable, now it weighs him down, tires him quickly, sometimes even covers his vision until Jon stubbornly climbs back to cognizance.

He knows this is not maintainable. If his body doesn’t give in his mind will.

Curled around him, Tormund doesn’t snore as he is usual vont to do. Jon knows he would wake to the barest shift in bed. There’s no use in pretending anymore, especially not when he’s the only warm thing Jon can sense, and they’ve been separated for months.

The ache is almost unbearable. Where Tormund touches him it burns, but that warmth is still preferable to feeling nothing.

Jon thinks that he’s running out of time, but in a quite different sense then the realms of men. White Walkers may overtake Westeros, but Jon doesn’t think he’ll live to see even the first head roll.

#### -

In a true, stubborn, Free Folk fashion, Tormund is adamant about accompanying Jon to King’s Landing. Despite Davos’ concerned looks thrown in Jon’s direction, he has no wish to dissuade him in this. He wants Tormund to go with him.

The only protest Davos puts up in the end is to say, “You’ll need southern clothes.”

“Why?”

“Because you will be boiling in the furs.”

Tormund considers this, brows pinched. Unhelpful to Davos’ intentions, Jon adds, “I did promise you a red coat. Long ago.”

Jon expects Tormund to fold, listen to the main voice of reason, mainly Davos, and stay with the ships where it’s safe. Of course, Tormund surpases his expectations. Jon should be used to it by now, but somehow isn’t. He isn’t sure if to be very glad of it right now, or be incredibly concerned.

“Fine. I’ll dress in your petty robes,” says Tormund.

Sansa was right. Nobody can save anybody.

#### -

Altogether, it takes them a month to get to King’s Landing, but before they do, they stop off at Dragonstone where Daenerys reconvenes with her army. She will ferry all her forces to the walls of King’s Landing in an unnecessary show of power.

Jon keeps his tongue in his mouth. Daenerys can do as she pleases.

On Dragonstone, more importantly, await new robes. Jon had been wearing a concoction of Tormund’s and Davos’ clothes and, though he’s grateful, he needs his own. There is, however, very little time for respite.

Ever since he’d told Daenerys the truth, he’s stopped pretending Tormund and he aren’t something they are. They don’t get any more than a couple of concerned glances from Davos, who seems to have known and is thus completely unsurprised, and an amused one or two from Daenerys when she isn’t busy with anything else.

It grows from obvious to blatant when Tormund refuses his own room--“No need to be wasting space.”--and lives out of Jon’s instead. Jon supposes he should have guessed that Daenerys would tell her advisors. Yet, he doesn’t see it coming from Tyrion over dinner he’d insisted Jon take in the Hand’s chambers.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” the man says, pouring Jon a drink. “Granted, I don’t see the appeal, but I suppose....the bearishness is charming?”

Jon sighs, and says, “What do you want?”

“What, can’t I congratulate a friend on his nuptials? Did you decide where to go for the honeymoon?”

“You don’t approve,” Jon says.

“Oh no, my friend, I approve anything that breaks this boring homogeneity we call life. Break away!” He drinks from his chalice and when he’s done, he says, “I’m just not sure how your people will take it.”

“I think they won’t care as long as I stand between them and the walkers.”

“Yes, yes, but after, if there really is an after. You’ll have to explain why there won’t be a queen in the North, and why there won’t be any princeling babies on the way.”

Jon scofs but in good humor. There will be a Queen in the North, and she will not have bastard children. But he does not have to reveal his hand completely yet, so all he says is, “If Daenerys has her way, there won’t be a need for princelings at all. It’s people that will choose the next King, isn’t that right?”

Tyrion hums in agreement, smirking softly. “Imagine, transition of power between houses without bloodshed. Sounds nigh impossible, doesn’t it?”

“Improbable, not impossible,” Jon offers.

“Well, our queen did promise to fight with you. I suppose you got what you wanted.” Tyrion makes a face. “Though you could have done it without the whole almost-dying bit.”

Jon smiles, rueful. “If Rhaegal didn’t twist around...he protected me. Whatever that means.”

“What do you _ think _ it means?” Tyrion asks, sounding more sober than before.

Jon feels something crawling under his skin. He never through the numbness could get worse. But he’s still alive, and there’s something in that too, something left unsaid between Rhaegal and he.

Only now, with Tyrion’s sharp gaze on him, does Jon start thinking about the implications.

Daenerys rides Drogon but all three of the dragons would have protected her; she is after all their mother. But who is Jon then, that one of the creatures might die for him?

#### -

King’s Landing is not as he imagined it to be. The sun is stronger, the streets are uglier. Dirtier, too. It stinks. He sees Tormund’s scowl from the corner of his eye, no doubt trying not to breathe in too deeply. Without the boots his step is silent and without the furs the bulk Jon has gotten accustomed to seeing is slimed down to strong shoulders and a thick waist. He looks taller than before.

Jon had expected him to complain about the clothes when they had finally come. Instead, Tormund had silently tried them on twice, to get used to them, and now wears them with the same grace and pride as the furs.

He has impossibly straight shoulders pulled back to form a straight line. The heat in Jon’s belly that has lied dormant as he healed from his injuries re-awakens with a vengeance.

The ambers and reds match Tormund’s hair, now pulled back from his face in a hairstyle similar to Jon’s, but a peak of a blue collar from his undershirt makes his eyes all the more noticeable and vibrant. The beard he’d clipped himself, somewhat begrudgingly, but only enough to shape it. At least he accepted the perfumes easily, always ready to pamper himself.

Tormund looks almost like a different person. If his battleaxe wasn’t hanging from his waist, light refracting off of the obsidian, he’d fit right in with the rest of the lords and ladies of the court.

The novelty is nice if surprising. Jon has seen the expression on Davos’ and Tyrion’s faces. Now, he looks at that same expression on Brienne’s.

“Your grace,” she says, eyes jumping from Jon to Tormund then back to him. If Brienne is there, it’s only because Sansa willed it.

He nods and she bends to whisper Sansa’s message to him. Jon feels his heart soaring, galloping in his chest. _ Arya is alive _. And, Jon thinks while trying to maintain a face of indifference, she’s somewhere in King’s Landing. Not only that but Bran’s back in Winterfell.

Brienne pulls away, looking at the people around them. “She sent me here to represent her best interest.”

Jon wants to ask her so much more but they have no time. The Lannister army is there to escort them to the meeting place.

In the old dragon fighting pits three distinct seating areas have been set up, each with one large chair and two smaller ones on each side. It seems that whatever Tyrion told Cersei, it wasn’t that Jon has already kneeled to Daenerys.

Though, he considers, kneeled isn’t a good expression. Made an alliance with? There are words missing for what Daenerys wants and Jon suspects new will be made as soon as she’s taken King’s Landing, to fill in the missing gaps. Absently, Jon is reminded of Sam, and now wishes he could talk to his friend.

The escort shows Jon to the right seating area where Jon takes the main seat, Tormund on his left, Davos on his right. He’d brought guards who file in order behind him; they’d spent all the time on Dragonstone, and seem all the worse for being in King’s Landing. Brienne doesn’t look as awkward as them, standing proudly in her armor, hand on the hilt of her sword, tall and impressive. Even Tormund turns to give her one of his smiles, which is not exactly as hostile as the previous ones have been. Jon finds he’s missed something when she nods, faintly smiling back. He will have to ask later.

Tyrion is shown to the left seating area where he sits on Daenerys’ left, Varys standing behind him, while Missandei takes a seat on the right. The commander of armies is absent; Jon assumes he’s preoccupied with the troops surrounding the city, but Theon stands in the back alongside the Dornishmen that had arrived to represent Dorne’s alliance with Daenerys. Separating them is a man bearing the crest of House Tyrell.

Cersei arrives next, looking nothing as he remembers her being. In Winterfell, she had long blond hair, dressed in reds of her house. Here, she is shorn, like a boy, with a twisted piece of metal for a crown, face red and bare, wearing black. She takes the main seat. The Mountain clunks next to her and stops behind her while the rest of the Queensguard arrange themselves around him.

On Cersei’s left sits a maester, if the Hand’s brooch is to be believed, while on her right sits a man Jon doesn’t recognize at all.

Jamie Lannister has changed since Jon last saw him too. He doesn’t take a seat, is instead content to stand with his retinue of men. He has one hand and his golden hair had tarnished into silver. He looks aged, wisened, somehow a completely different man than Jon had known him to be. His face is tight, and he keeps glancing Jon’s way.

The silence is deafening. The chairs creek, the wind picks up dust and whistles though the cracks of the ruins. Cersei’s impatience is obvious when she asks, “Where is she?”

“She’ll be here shortly,” Tyrion reassures. Then, for some reason, he looks at Jon.

There’s crackling in the air, something Jon realizes is a scream of a dragon only when it gets close. He sees Viserion, a silent fury, descending from above but staying well away while Drogon flies down to the fighting pits. The wall crumbles under his weight and he roars, sending warm air towards them.

Daenerys climbs down his scales until she’s standing on the ones near Drogon’s neck, holding onto another. Drogon walks forward, stretching his neck, until Daenerys can hop onto the podium. She’s a little late and a little smug.

Drogon returns to his perch and settles himself as if he’s part of the arena wall.

When Daenerys finally takes a seat, he turns to look at Cersei. Unlike her men, she doesn’t appear to be unsettled but Jamie’s eyes are sharp and keen as they look at Daenerys, then back to Jon, through him.

Before anyone can speak, the man next to Cersei says, “Theon! I have your sister! If you don’t submit to me here now, I’ll kill her.”

Jon watches as Theon frowns, but instead of doing as told, he simply looks at Tyrion, who’d stood up, and was about to speak.

It’s an unplanned discrepancy it seems because Cersei forces Euron, Jon knows now, back into line. Tyrion can finally speak but Jon watches Theon instead. In doing so he notices that Jorah Mormon, a man Jon had thought inseparable from Daenerys, is not there.

Clegane’s lumbering steps are loud on the ancient stone. He huffs as he lowers down the crate with the wight. _ They must never know what price we paid for this _ \-- Daenerys’ warning, before they’d set out. The wight jumps out, and Jon jumps to his feet.

“We can destroy them by burning them,” he says, using a torch. “We can destroy them with dragonglass.”

He keeps talking, even after Euron Greyjoy leaves and Clegane siddles up behind Daenerys.

Then all eyes fall to Cersei who considers this proposal. Jon hopes, because he is still a man, half-alive. He hopes because they need the help from the Lannister army, and he does not know what he will do if they don’t get it.

Finally, Cersei says, “The Crown accepts your truce. Until the dead are defeated, they are the true enemy. In return, the King in the North will extend this truce. He will remain in the North where he belongs. He will not take up arms against the Lannisters. He will not choose sides.”

“Just the King in the North? Not me?” The lilt of Daenerys’ voice is incendiary.

Cersei, however, chuckles.

“I would never ask it of you. You would never agree to it. And if you did, I would trust you even less than I do now.” She shakes her head and looks at Jon. “I ask it only of Ned Stark's son. I know Ned Stark's son will be true to his word.”

Jon feels his hearth quickly beating in his chest. “I am true to my word. Or I try to be.”

He looks at Daenery and her pale, ancient eyes, then back to Cersei. He remembers what he’d told Sansa.

“The men in my family don’t do well south. The King in the North should always stay in the north. You have my word. As long as I’m King in the North no northern army will march upon this city, nor take up arms against the Crown.”

It’s a binding Oath, true. As long as Jon’s king, he will not break it. But that doesn’t mean his oath binds the one who comes after him, should they all survive. Once Sansa is Queen in the North, Jon’s decisions here won’t disparage her in her quest or her rule. He can promise that.

When he looks at Daenerys she has an amused smile on her face. A smile, Jon has learned over the course of their acquaintanceship, she usually reserves for him alone. Her old eyes look at Jon, then move past him. In the distance he can hear Viserion’s screech. Jon turns and watches as Jorah Mormon approaches.

At the sight of him Daenerys smiles. “You said you won’t ask me to make you an oath. But I will anyway.”

She stands, walking over next to Jon. Together, they watches as, skinnier than before, dirty, and yet looking like fury itself, Ellaria Sand shambles across the courtyard with Beric’s help and stands with her.

Daenerys turns her attention back on Cersei, who has stood up in alarm. The Lannister men look uncertain whether to draw their swords or not.

“The Unsullied and the Dothraki surround King’s Landing. You have no food to feed your people. And Euron Greyjoy is burning as we speak. I _ will _ kill you, but your people don’t have to die.”

Just then, a guard hurries to Jamie saying, “My lord, the fleet--”

At once, swords are drawn on all sides. Cersei’s expression is tight but she doesn’t look frightened. In fact, if her smirk is to be believed, she looks satisfied with such an outcome.

“Ser Gregor,” she commands and the Mountain trembles to life, her own personal wight.

He unsheathes his greatsword, and at once moves to charge at Daenerys. Jon takes out Claw, but before the Mountain can get to them, Clegane steps in front, saying, “You go through me, brother.”

They exchange blows at once, and the clanking of steel on steel has Jon’s blood rushing to his head. He makes eye-contact with Tormund, who shifts his weight from one foot to the other, unsure whether to charge or not. After all, Jamie has yet to order his men to do anything more then stand and watch as two brothers cleave at each other. Jon gives Tormund a small dismissive shake of the head. No use in starting anything until the Lannisters do.

Jon feels vibrations from the ground as Drogon, all too quickly, curls protectively around them. His head is large and menacing as it nudges Jon.

“Will you yield? Will you give your life for your people?” Daenerys asks Cersei.

But she knows the answer. She must. They all do.

And yet, it seems all the more poignant when Cersei finally hisses, “I will give you nothing, whore.”

At once, he sees Jamie Lannister shifting. He looks at his men, and says, “Then we won’t give our lives for you either.”

Betrayal is sharp and quick, but Jamie moves away, abandoning Cersei. The Queensguard waivers, but they operate under different orders and oaths than the army general, and it seems as long as the Mountain exchanges blows with the Hound, they won’t betray her.

Jon wonders how absurd it is to weigh your fait on another man. It has turned into a trial-by-combat though nobody asked for one.

So focused on the fight in front of them, Jon barely even sees it. Then, Cersei’s Hand is stepping away, a bloody dagger in his hand. Jon watches as her wide, shocked eyes, lose focus, and she falls to her knees, blood gushing from her bare, pale throat. She topples, and when she hits the ground her crown rolls away across the pavement, to sit at Jamie’s feet.

The Queensguard advances but, more agile than he should be, the maester finds a sword and kills them one after another. Jon sees the sword. _ Needle _.

In a voice quite unlike an old man, a voice Jon knows, he hears the maester shout, “Go for the head!”

He sees the Hound nod. In a laberous move, he manages to wedge his sword between the Hound’s helmet and shield. Black blood pours, and the Mountain staggers, falling to his knees. He clatters to the floor, twitching.

Clegane gives a huff, falls to his knees, and then, horribly, Jon watches as the Mountain stands. Quick as a viper, Drogon strikes, crushing the Mountain between his teeth. He throws him against a wall of the fighting pits, and Daenerys’ _ dracarys _ is louder than the fire that burns him until there’s nothing left.

Clegane watches, then his face twists, until he’s heaving with laughter.

Jorah moves to help him to his feet, then into a seat. All too suddenly, the Seven Kingdoms are left without a queen, without Queensguard, and without instruction.

More guards come, and more guards stand down, commanded by Jamie.

Daenerys’ eyes are sharp when she says, “You are the Lord of Casterly Rock. Bow to me. Don’t let your people die in vain.”

He sees Jamie shifting, he sees his eyes falling, not as Jon has thought on him, but on Brienne.

“I am not a Lord of anything,” he says. “But I am commander of Lannister forces and I see you are not as your father.” He turns to one of his men. “Tell them to ring the bell. The Queen is dead.”

“But-- my lord--”

“Don’t you see, there is a new Queen now?”

At once, the man goes.

The only person left to deal with is Cersei’s Hand, who stands now, with his hands folded behind his back, spine straight.

“And who are you?” Daenerys asks.

Jon watches as the maester moves a hand over his face, and at once Jon is looking at his sister. Her name is punches out of his chest.

“My name is Arya Stark, your grace. I am Lady Stark’s and Jon Snow’s sister.” She smirks, victorious.

Despite Jon thinking Daenerys would allow it, she pushes a hand in front of Jon, stopping him from going to her. “You’re a faceless man,” she says. “How do we know you don’t have Arya’s face as well?”  
  


“I traveled with her from Winterfell, your grace,” Brienne says stepping forward. “If anyone else, Lady Stark would have noticed if she weren’t herself.”

“Danny, please,” Jon says in a hushed whisper.

Daenerys looks at him. She’s _ worried _, Jon realizes. Yet, she lowers her hand, letting Jon fly across the arena so he can hug his sister.

Arya, in his arms, is bigger than the last time he hugged her, but she giggles all the same.

Somewhere behind them, the bells start tolling.

#### -

The news of the Queen’s death spreads through King’s Landing just like sickness in Flea Bottom. The bells toll a monotonous, alarming but soon grating chime that forces the people to the streets to question whatever has happened. The bells, after all, toll only for a city under siege or for a dead king and they are concerned which it will be.

If they stand in front of their doors long enough, they will see the guards’ shocked expression, and they will watch them take off not for the gates but further into the city. They will watch two dragons dancing in the air, and watch as the guards return only to open the gates. They will watch a procession of strange soldiers march into the city.

They will also watch how they form two lines, keeping in formation. The tension in the air, palpable, will remain long after the strange men are gone, headed not the throne but for the fighting pits.

-

The Unsullied arrive without clamour, pooling quietly into the fighting pits until they surround them. Daenerys goes to speak with the Commander of Armies, and when she’s finished she turns to Jamie Lannister.   
  
“It’s time,” she says. The man inclines his head.

The Queensguard is dead, but not the rest of the city guard. In the middle go Daenerys, Ellaria, Jon and Tormund, flanked by Arya and Brienne, with their advisors and loyalists. Around them the unsullied form a barrier, while city guard goes around the periphery.

Escorted by Jamie Lannister, shrouded within the guards, and a dragon flying high above them, nobody even thinks of stopping them. No, all that Jon can see, which is very little, are curious faces peeking out of houses and top windows, uncertain about what they’re seeing. It must look like, Jon thinks, as if a drop of white transported in a balloon, flanked by black and red.   
  
From the fighting pits they march upon the Red Keep which, inexplicably, opens its doors for them.

Daenerys holds Ellaria Sand’s hand, supporting her even as they step into the main hall. They’re welcomed by more Lannister men, Commanders forming a line in front of the empty Iron Throne.

One of them steps forward and says ruefully, “Jamie, what is the meaning of this?”

“Cersei is dead, uncle. You should rejoice,” Jamie says with more levity then he must feel.

“Foolish man. Do you think the Targaryen girl will forgive you? She will burn us all.”

“Come now uncle, if she wanted to do that, she would have taken the Keep by herself. Not waited on us.”

Daenerys gives Ellaria a soft smile and hands her off to Jon, though it seems he is rather unimpressive to the woman, who simply huffs and turns to watch Daenerys push through the crowd of guards and stands in line with Tyrion. Jon can see the shock crowning the commanders’ faces.

“I gave Cersei a chance. I asked her if she would rather give up her crown, or watch me burn King’s Landing. And what _ did _ she say, Ser Jamie?”

Jamie cocks his head in that infuriatingly confident manner of his and says, “I’ll give you nothing. She would have let the whole city burn before she would have given up the crown. Just like Aerys.”

“The other Lords won’t stand for this,” the commander says in a strained voice.

“Dorne is with me, The Iron Islands are with me, The Reach is with me, and the North. I rule Merren and the Dragon’s Bay. All that is left are the Stormlands, divided up amongst smaller lords now that Myrcella’s to be wed.”

Danerys steps closer, drawing her shoulders back as always. Her familiarity with the topic seems to strike some kind of fear in the commander’s heart, because Jon recognizes the frown, the anger that tries to cover it.

“You have lived a long life, Lord Kevan. You have seen the truth: I am not my father, as neither Tyrion nor Ser Jamie are theirs. The crown has changed hands too many times, it’s time for this wheel to stop.”

“Even if that may be the case, you may do good, but can you vouch for your children? Your grandchildren? The rest of your line who will sit on the throne?”

Daenerys’ smile is obvious in her tone of voice. “The Seven Kingdoms won’t have to suffer irresponsible, childish, irrational people. When I’m done, and I can promise you this, there will be a system which will take all those corrupt and inept, and be able to change them. Be it the Grand Maester _ or _ the King.”

He watches the man’s face crumble. He doesn’t believe her, Jon thinks, but he’s not too old to hope. Daenerys’ promise is perhaps too good, but if he’s lived this far he knows he will live to see what will come of her words.

“Stand down, men,” he says and the men, it seems happily, sheath their swords. They clear the path to the throne.

Daenerys looks at it, and then climbs, one jagged step after another, until she’s seated. Her hands, first folded in her lap, go to the armrests and she strikes such a strange, contrary vision in her white-and-blue dress, shining against the rusted colors of the throne. Jon thinks of ice, shining and blue that had pierced Rhaegal’s skin, cradled in jaws of fire.

“Let the people know,” she says, “And let them into the Keep so they might gaze at me on their own.”

Jon, alarmed, looks at Tyrion, but it seems they had everything planned. He looks at Tormund, who gives him a similar look, and says in the Old Tongue, “_ This one is as crazy as you _.”

Jon huffs out a quiet laugh and Tormund smirks.

“_ Bloody ugly chair though.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you for reading this. I appreciate your comments and your love for these two boys. This series really got out of control length-wise but I hope it's treated you well. 
> 
> The next installment is in the works, should be done by the end of the 1st week of December. Afterwards, I hope to get the last part of the series done by the end of the month (provided I'm not drowned by writing fic gifts for friends for X-Mas).


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